Chapter Seven:
The sun arose early the next morning, despite it being bitterly cold. Hermione dressed and walked into the common room to find everyone already there. Watching some movie about guns.
"Hermione, Thank God your up! Please tell us what a gun is. I tried to use the booogle to look it up but I don't know how!" Ginny wailed.
"Ok! Firstly calm down. Secondly it's google, thirdly a gun is a machine that can be used to kill. It's like the killing curse but instead of casting a spell, you press a button which triggers a spring firing a bullet at rocket power into the victim killing or wounding them"
"But they look awesome on TV" Ginny said
"I have an idea" Hermione smiled. She whipped out her phone and pressed a few buttons. Before smiling.
"Come on" she said gathering everyone
"But I haven't had breakfast yet" George said. Hermione sighed and dragged him out anyway. Stating that there would be time for food after.
They walked back to the first town they found, and kept on walking. They arrived at a big store, with a large field outside.
"Paint ball" Fred read aloud "Hermione we don't wanna do painting" he said Hermione smiled and ushered them inside.
They were put into outfits then taken onto the battle ground, they were given a quick introduction to the guns and then the game started. Amazingly, everyone picked it up fairly easily and 5 minutes in there was a strong competitive side released on everyone. They played three games, one Draco won, one Fred and a George tied at first and one that Ginny won.
After playing the games, their aching bodies couldn't take much more, though they wanted to play again. Hermione came up with a miraculous solution. She walked them for ten more minutes when they came to a bigger barn.
"Ok, so these are the guns we're going to be using, each time you press the trigger it will shoot once, once you've been shot 6times you die where you'll, be responded, you have 2 15 minute games" the instructor said showing the different parts of the gun, they kitted up the group and sent them through to the battle field, the gang much preferred this game as they could pay but it didn't hurt. They actually okayed for two hours having 4 games of 2 15 minutes.
Tired, aching but happy and satisfied they made their way back to the house to shower and change. They decided that on a day like today, as outside was freezing cold. They would light the fire in the common room, and watch a movie over some popcorn, have a pyjama party. Realising that they didn't know what food they desired, but not wanting to cook, Hermione ordered a take away. Well multiple take always. She ordered a Selection of Indian currys, onion banjis, and a selection of rice and Naan breads and poppadum's. Then then ordered a Chinese, ordering Aramaic duck, rice, chow mien, various noodles and words the rest didn't understand. They also ordered a few pizzas of various toppings.
"Any takers to come with me?" Hermione asked. Everyone's eyes drifted to Draco who was the only one who wasn't yet in his pyjamas.
"Guess its me" Draco said. Standing up.
"Thank you Draco" Hermione said picking up her purse and walking out, Draco in tow. They walked through the shortcut and arriving. Before long they had all three meals before arriving back to the house, greeting the gang with three steaming delicious meals.
They all dug in, sharing the foods between them. Once they were all stuffed. Draco and Hermione went off to their rooms and joined the rest of the gang in their pyjamas. They put on a horror film, Sinister. As they watched, lights dimmed right down, Ginny and Hermione sharing a sofa, cuddled close under a blanket, anxiously chewing on the popcorn, spilling some every time they jumped. Fred and George were obviously scared but tied to seem "cool" as the slytherin's just laughed at the scariest bits.
Aftr the film ended, they decided to play some chess, non-wizard of course, which Hermione was happy to teach them. The gang was...predictably unimpressed with the non magical version, so Hermione deicided that a more interesting game would be pool. When the room was redone, a dartboard and pool table were put in there.
Hermione spent the next hour teaching them all how to play pool, Ginny nervously kept peering over her shoulder. She refused to go anywhere near the window and insisted that George or Fred closed all the curtains.
"Scared?" Blaise asked
"Don't worry, Ginny. Ill protect you if anyone tries to attack you" Theo said lightly taking her hand in his, their eyes met and they stayed like that a second or so too long, everyone else was silent, starring at them. Hermione was too busy looking at Ginny to notice Draco's eyes boaring into the back of her head. Theo, knowing the silence well broke away and went straight back into pool mode, knocking everyone else into the same mode.
There were a few good games, once they got the hang of it, the gang became quite competitive, in a friendly way. It reached midnight and the gang decided to head to bed. They bade their goodnights and went to their rooms. Hermione was in between Ginny and Draco. The other side of Ginny was Theo. It was barely 10 minutes after Hermione had got into her room before she heard a light patter of footsteps going past her door. She smiled lightly. She didn't know exactly what was going on, but she was glad that Ginny had moved on from Harry. Weird. She suddenly had flashbacks.
First, second and third years she had gotten close to Ron and Harry, they were virtually inseparable. Fourth year, she made more friends, she had grown closer to Ginny and had met new people, Padma, Parvarti, Luna. She started to think what made her drift away from the Golden Trio. Ron had been a dick in fourth year, and Harry was always stressed, in fact Harry has been on edge since 4th year, snappy and distant, in fact it was only getting worse, a lump formed in her throat as she remember how Ron and Harry fought back then, and how she was pulled between the two, focing them to make up, but as soon as they were good, she was again cast aside. She was good at that, being cast aside. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes she got up and walked into the common room, she got a glass of water and drank it, she walked over to the library and fingered the spines of some of the books, smiling as the feeling of parchment and paper soothed her. She picked out a book and settled on the armchair, with the lamp on for a little reading. The book was about a girl who was cast aside, lost contact with her friends and didn't know that they were on the verge of dying, suddenly the lump returned and this time she didn't hold back, she let the tears spill.
Silently crying, her tears fell upon the pages of the book, making gentle moist marks on the delicate pages.
She didn't realise how much she was crying until an arm wrapped around her, making her jump flailing her arms in fear.
"Relax Hermione" the voice said.