Hey everyone! So, so sorry on the late updates, I have been still recovering from my birthday madness and I still have to have a party for my friends, so anyway so sorry for the lack of updates! Thank you so much to my one lovely reviewer Aki-Sama of the Northern Lands! Yeah, I had hoped I would get more reviews but that's ok, lol. Alright, I will give you the update since you have all been waiting patiently :P. And it's REALLY LONG. Make sure you have plenty of time to read.
Warning: There may be some –ahem- bad language down about half way through, just be warned, this is a T rated fanfic.
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Disclaimer: -Checks book cover- It still says JK Rowling, clearly it doesn't have my name on it.
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Harry opened the door to find Hermione sitting in the Great Room reading.
"Oh, hey, there you are, decided to take a walk?" she asked.
"Yeah, well I did and Ginny found me at the Cemetery looking for my parents' graves', and she found them. On the way back, we met some of the neighbors." Harry said taking off his cloak. "Ron up yet?" he asked.
"Not yet," Hermione said.
"Let's go cook breakfast and we'll get Ron down here soon enough." Ginny laughed. Hermione put the book down and went to go help Ginny cook breakfast. Sure enough, the moment they started to cook, and the delicious fumes were drifting up in the air, Ron was downstairs, up and ready for breakfast. Hermione laughed at him for only getting up because of the smells of breakfast and Ginny said, "I told you so!"
"I never contradicted you! I knew as well as I he would get up when we started cooking!" Hermione giggled. They ate their wonderful breakfast and were trying to figure to what they were going to do for the rest of the day. They decided on going to Diagon Ally, and Hermione, Ron and Ginny planned on getting Harry's birthday gifts while Harry looked at a different store. They used Floo Powder to get to the Leaky Cauldron and Tom the innkeeper waved to them as they walked to the back room. Harry took out his wand and hit the bricks in the same way he saw Hagrid do so many years ago. The bricks parted and the crowded streets revealed themselves to Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny and they joined the swarm of people. They started to look at the windows and each of them were trying to think of ways to get Harry away from at least one of them to go get shopping done.
"Hey, Harry, I need to go get a new quill will you come with me?" Hermione asked, an idea hitting her.
"Sure…" Harry said. Hermione turned off in the bustle of the crowd dragging Harry off and she looked back mouthing the words, "Go find him a good birthday present." Ron and Ginny headed in the opposite direction searching the shops for a satisfactory gift for Harry.
Harry followed Hermione to the quill and stationary store and she pondered which quill she should get, she didn't even know if she was going to buy, but it was a diversion to keep Harry out of the way of Ron and Ginny. Harry had wondered off and Hermione made a lookout for him to make sure he didn't leave. After a little while Hermione wondered back over to where Harry was.
"Hey, Hermione, I'm thinking of giving this to Ginny for her birthday present, do you think she'll like it?" he asked. It was a beautiful dove quill with some delicate stationary with a few lily flowers surrounding the outer edges.
"She'll love it," Hermione commented. They paid for their purchases and we back out into the immense crowd to find Ron and Ginny. After a little while, they found the two redhead siblings.
"Hey Harry, you gotta come see this new thing in Fred and George's shop!" they cried and as they grabbed him, Ginny looked back at Hermione and gave her a curt nod and she hurried off, most likely to Quality Quidditch Supplies to find Harry a gift.
Ginny was attempting to hide Harry's gifts in her closet later that day before Harry had say what she gotten him. She had ran back downstairs to see Ron and Hermione wearing sly expressions, indicating they had hidden their presents for Harry. They made dinner and ate it sitting on the floor talking about the day when a large tawny owl flew in. It flew right to Ron and nearly knocked some food off of Ron's plate.
"Bloody bird! What doing giving it to me!" he said picking up the letter. Sure enough it was addressed to him, in magnificent letters in neat scrawl wrote 'Ron Weasley'.
"What did you do to get the Ministry involved, Ron?" Ginny joked. Ron opened it and read through it quickly. His face looked as if it were going to explode because of the broad grin that was plastered on it.
"What is it?" Hermione asked. He just handed the letter over to Harry to read, since he was in shock.
"Mr. Weasley…Exceptional Quidditch skills…" he scanned. "You've been accepted in the Chudley Cannons Official Quidditch Team!" Harry exclaimed.
"No kidding!" Ginny said, she grabbed the letter from Harry. "No way!" she said celebrating as Hermione took the letter next.
"That's so neat!" she exclaimed, after she had read it. "Wait, you guys!" she said, and they quieted down. "This is just inviting him to try out!" she said.
"Oh, that's it I'm doomed!" Ron moaned his grin rapidly disappeared.
"Ron, you did fine at school, you'll do fine now," Hermione protested.
"But, Hermione, this isn't school!" Ron contradicted.
"It's basically the same thing!" Hermione yelled.
"Except there are a hundred times more people watching me!" Ron exclaimed.
"Do you think there's much of a difference? Your skill is the same it was back at Hogwarts!" Hermione shouted.
"No, Hermione! I'm as nervous as hell and when I'm nervous I can't block a single damn goal!" he yelled. This continued for a good 15 minutes straight with more curse words than Ginny and Harry had ever heard in their lives and quite a few rude hand gestures. It probably could have went on for the rest of the night if Harry hadn't ran upstairs, grab his and Ron's broomsticks and a few things that could replace a Quaffle and grab Ron by the arm and drag him out the backdoor.
"Oh, I just can't stand him, ARGH!" Hermione cried out in frustration as she paced the room. "He doesn't think he can do it but I bloody well know he can! Why can't he just have some higher self esteem for a little while!" Hermione almost screamed; making her voice so loud it echoed off of the high walls.
"Hermione, calm down, it's normal for him to be nervous about try-outs," Ginny instructed, "take a deep, big breath in," Hermione inhaled, "and out," Hermione exhaled. Her face was brick red and beads of sweat had started to form on her forehead. Ginny gave Hermione a cold glass of water, which she about downed in a second, and opened a few windows for Hermione to cool down. Hermione grabbed on of her books and started to read, almost ripping the pages as she turned them, and her knuckles were a ghostly white from her tight grasp of the book. To Hermione reading was a comfort thing, but in this case it didn't seem to be working.
"Hey, hey, hey, maybe reading right now isn't the best thing to do right now," Ginny said, grabbing the book from Hermione's firm grasp. Crookshanks wandered around the corner, looking as mangy as ever and jumped up on the couch and sat on Hermione's lap, and she started petting him vigorously, little fur balls were flying up from Hermione brushing all what Crookshanks had shed into the air. "Maybe petting Crookshanks isn't the best idea either," Ginny said just enough for Hermione's attention to be distracted for Crookshanks to make a quick escape.
"What are you doing, Harry!" Ron asked, agitated.
"Were practicing for the try-outs." Harry replied calmly.
"Harry, no matter how much practicing were doing, I'll still make a fool of myself!" Ron shouted. Not wanting to get in a fight, Harry remained calm.
"The whole idea is to get you so good no matter how nervous you are, you'll still do fine."
"Yeah, but mate, you're not much of a chaser."
"I've watched Angelina, Katie and Alicia so it for six years you would think I'd know a little bit of throwing a ball around."
They mounted their brooms, and did a few practice laps around the backyard a little bit and then they took their positions, Ron at one end of the yard, Harry at the opposite.
"Ok, so, when I throw this at you," he gestured to the large rubber ball he had in his hand, "I want you to kick it or catch it and throw it back to me," Harry said. He sped off toward Ron and stopped a 10 meters away from Ron and threw it. It barely grazed Ron's fingertips and went soaring past him.
"See you're not even a chaser and you got it past me! I'm not even nervous!" he cried out.
"It was a bad throw, no one could have caught it. Just wait, and try again," Harry said. "Try this, think of something you just can't stand, and take out your anger," Harry said. He hurled the rubber ball toward Ron.
Hermione! Ron thought, angrily.
He kicked it as hard as possible and it was soaring high above their heads and far away. Harry shot up into the air and caught it before it hit the ground.
"Ok, that was a lot better, but we want it toward a teammate not toward the birds." Harry chuckled. "Let's see if you do something better, try thinking of something you really like, ready?" Harry said. Ron nodded and Harry flung the ball at Ron. In the back of his mind the thought jumped up on him.
Hermione, he thought.
His palms grew sweaty and his hands almost slipped, like what he always did when Hermione was brought up or was around him, but he caught the ball likewise. Ron threw it back to Harry with ease. What had just happened? He used Hermione for his angry and happy thought. Ron had always acted a little differently around Hermione, but he had never consciously noticed. Applauding came from behind Harry. They both looked over into the next yard where Milo and Sarah were sitting on the back porch, clapping.
"Well, done!" Milo commented. They both flew over to where they sat.
"We saw you practicing and decided to come watch," Milo said.
"Nice flying, too." Sarah added.
"Oh, right, Ron this is Milo and Sarah, our next-door neighbors," Harry introduced.
"N-nice to meet you," he stumbled, still in shock from his latest save.
"He was just invited to try-out for the Cannons," Harry said.
"Is that so? Well, I wish ya good luck for the try-outs. I hear the competition for keeper isn't very tough, you'll easily make it on the team," he grumbled.
"Thanks…" Ron said.
They dismounted their brooms after practicing some and collected the rubber ball and started to walk up to the house.
"Wouldn't that be brilliant if you get a letter calling you to tryout for the Cannons? I mean didn't Wood say that you were as good as Charlie? And he also said if Charlie hadn't gone off to mess around with dragons, he could have played for England!" Ron exclaimed. Harry thought about, but he didn't think it was possible, if Ron's invitation had shown up that evening so would have Harry's.
The rest of the night Ron and Hermione didn't say a word to each other. It had gotten dark after Harry and Ron had come back inside and Ron rushed quickly up to his bedroom without even glancing at Hermione. Hermione stormed up to her room soon after.
"I just can't understand why they're always fighting," Harry sighed.
"They like each other," Ginny said, petting Annabelle who had just settled on her lap.
"Well I know they like each other, they've been friends since our first year at Hogwarts, there's just been a few rough fights," Harry said.
"Not like that, Harry. They like, like each other," she said emphasizing the second 'like'. If Harry was drinking something, he might have spit it out.
"What!" he asked startled.
"C'mon! Are you really that blind?" Ginny asked, rolling her eyes. "They've liked each other since the end of your third year!" she exclaimed.
"Really? I've never noticed," Harry said. Ginny just sighed.
"Ever noticed how jealous Ron was when Hermione went with Krum to the Yule Ball?" Ginny asked. "Or how annoyed Hermione got when Ron was snogging with Lavender every minute they were even in the same room?" Ginny questioned.
"Ohhhh, but then...why are they always fighting?" Harry asked
"Are you really that thick? They don't want to admit it to each other because they're afraid the other one doesn't like each other like they like them!" Ginny explained.
"How do you know all this?" Harry asked.
"A girl has her ways..." Ginny smiled, "and Ron and Hermione have both confronted me about it."
"Well, then we have to help them!" Harry exclaimed.
"We have to let them work it out on their own, we won't play Cupid for them." Ginny told Harry and he nodded.
"Well, that practice has made me tired, I'm off to bed," Harry said, getting up off of the couch.
"Ok, I'll go clean the dishes real quick and I'll go to bed too, I don't like to be the last one up, while everyone else is in bed," Ginny said.
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Okay, I think Harry has realized that Ron and Hermione 'like, like' each other in the books, unless I'm delusional (which could be true) but I think it would be funny for Harry to have a -cough- senior moment, just to say. Also, that is the last appearance of Milo and Sarah -sniff sniff- unless I decide to put them way later in the story. Please remember to review! If you like, review! If you do, I promise WORLD PEACE AND I'LL SAVE THE RAINFORESTS! Okay, maybe not, but you get my point. So save a tree and review! …Ok that made no sense but just review and I swear I'll stop rambling. Really I will. Right…NOW:X
-Kat