DISCLAIMER: Don't own Harry Potter and co. Boo hoo etc
Hermione groggily opened her eyes, and looked at the clock on her bedside table. 10.27am! She never overslept that much. She pulled on her dressing gown, and went into the kitchen. Charlie was sitting at the tiny table reading The Daily Prophet, wearing a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and a t-shirt that was slightly too small. Hermione suddenly became very conscious of her own attire - an enormous pair of yellow pajamas, with Winnie-the-Pooh on the front.
Pajamas were never something she gave much thought to - on the few occasions she had spent the night with Ron, she had worn a purple silky thing that Ginny had helped her buy . . . not that Ron was usually paying too much attention to what she was wearing: he was usually more interested in trying to get her out of it.
But standing here, in her kitchen, she suddenly felt very self-conscious - of the fact that her hair was even more wild than usual due to not having been brushed, of the fact that her pajamas made her look positively elephantine, and of the fact that her dressing gown was covered in coffee stains from that time last week when she accidentally spilt coffee over herself when the clock made her jump. She was aware that she looked a bit of a mess . . . whereas Charlie, on the other hand, looked . . . well, to put it another way, she fully remembered why her 15 year old self had had such a big crush on him.
He looked up, seemingly unfazed by the state of either of their clothing. "Good morning," he smiled at her. "Hope you don't mind - I helped myself to the paper already - not that there's much in it today."
"No, no, that's fine," Hermione yawned. "Coffee, coffee. Where's the coffee?"
"Some in the pot already," said Charlie.
"You are a mind-reader," Hermione said, pouring herself a cup.
"Not really - I didn't take Divination. Waste of time, if you ask me," Charlie said, matter-of-factly.
"Oh, I completely agree - I dropped it mid-way through third year. Actually, I walked out in a strop, but never mind about that," Hermione agreed. Charlie chuckled.
"Now, I wish I could have seen that!" he said, and Hermione flushed slightly. "The one and only time you dissed a teacher, right?"
"Um, well, I was quite rude to her - Professor Trelawney, I mean - on a number of occasions. And then there was Professor Umbridge . . . " she trailed off.
"Yeah, but she doesn't count, does she? It's not like she was ever a proper teacher," Charlie said, rather scathingly. "Stupid Ministry - trying to poke it's nose in where it doesn't belong." He looked up. "Oh, sorry! I forgot you worked there - I didn't mean . . . well, it's not the entire Ministry, obviously - like at the moment we've got a perfectly good Minister for Magic, I just meant that sometimes with some things . . . I'm sorry, it-"
"It's fine," Hermione said, smiling. "I know what you mean - feel the same way myself, sometimes. Especially on a bad day, like yesterday."
"I'm sorry - I just have this foot-in-mouth disease thing sometimes," Charlie said. "It's a bit stupid. And embarrassing."
"Don't worry," said Hermione, smiling sweetly. "It's just because you're a man - you can't help it!"
"On behalf of the male gender, I must say that I rather resent that comment!" replied Charlie.
"Whatever," said Hermione. "Now, is there any food? I'm rather hungry."
"Yes, I was wondering when that was going to come up," said Charlie. "We have: the remains of that cereal, which frankly isn't enough for half of one serving; the chocolate cake, and two extremely overripe bananas."
"Oh," said Hermione. "Well . . . I suppose you don't mind having a banana and a piece of your mother's very delicious chocolate cake for breakfast do you? You could have the cereal too, if you wanted?"
"Hermione," Charlie said, somewhat seriously. "How can you run out of food? It's not normal."
Hermione burst into peals of laughter. "What?" asked Charlie, almost petulantly.
"I'm sorry, you sounded so much like Ron then," she replied, still laughing. Charlie joined in - it was true; that was a comment that the youngest Weasley boy would make. "I do have food, just not very much. I'm a student, I can't help it. I just keep some cereal for breakfast, I don't need anything for lunch, 'cause I eat at the Ministry usually, and for the dinner I usually just buy a muggle takeaway. I usually keep some fruit and a loaf of bread around as well, just in case I get a bit peck-ish. And your Mum is always giving me cake and stuff."
Charlie shook his head in resignation. "Well, that'll definitely have to change," he said, whilst summoning the chocolate cake and cutting two generous slices. "For one thing, no more takeaways. I'm only cooking proper food from now on. So one of us'll need to go out later and get some stuff."
"Yes, that reminds me - do you have any plans for the day?" Hermione asked.
"Well, I was going to go down to the new reserve - just to check things out, you know?" Hermione nodded. "Then there were a few people I wanted to look up, now that I'm back in the country and all."
"Well, I was going to stay in all day - I've got some essays to write and a mountain of books to read, so if you make a list of stuff we need, I'll go out and get it at some point during the day," Hermione said.
"There's no need for you to-" Charlie began, but Hermione cut him off.
"Don't worry - I'll look forward to it: it'll be a chance for me to get out of the house," she said. "My work is that exciting," she deadpanned, and Charlie laughed.
"Ah well, someone's got to take over as Minister for Magic when Kingsley retires," he commented.
"I don't know about that," Hermione ran her hands through her hair. "I've got to get through my first term as a Law student yet."
Charlie arrived back at the flat at around five o'clock, and found it deserted. There was a note pinned to the door of the tiny kitchen.
Dear Charlie,
Have gone to Ron's. Will be back for dinner, though (I'll aim to get in at around half-six, if that fits in with your plans?). I bought everything that was on the list, though I couldn't get any ham. Hope that's not too vital.
I've never had that much food stuff to fit into the flat before, so I've had to invent some new storage. Everything is in the cupboard directly above the sink, but to get at it, you need to think of the thing that you want (pasta, for example) and tap it three times with your wand, then say revealio. At the moment, you can only get one thing out at a time, so I'll have to work on that, but hopefully it'll work for now.
See you later,
Hermione
Charlie tested out her cupboard storage technique, and was very impressed. He had known, of course, that Hermione was clever - she was the girl, after all, who had received 12 "Outstanding" N.E.W.T.s, but this was especially remarkable, as she had invented the spell herself, on the spur of the moment. Ron was lucky to have her. And not only for her brain - she was a very pretty girl. She wasn't beautiful, or stunning, but she was pretty - cute, he supposed, though she'd probably kill him if she ever heard him say that.
He cooked a casserole for dinner, and she arrived back just as it was finishing. She laid the table, and they sat down to eat. "Did you have a nice day?" she asked, looking at him across the table.
"Oh, you know - it was alright. I went to see George this morning - Ron was there too, so I caught up with them both," he replied. "Then I went to the reserve, and saw what was going on there. I meant to go and see Percy and Mum and Dad, and Bill again, but I ended up being there all day. What about you?"
"Spent the afternoon at Ron's," she said, in between mouthfuls. Charlie raised his eyebrows, with a smirk. "Don't be crude. It was nothing like that. He wanted me to help him write his sodding essay!"
Was it his imagination, or did she sound rather angry? "I mean, I wouldn't mind, but that's like the twelfth time he's done that! He just expects me to drop everything - all my work when he wants to go out, but he never returns the favor. Sometimes, I think he's just going out with me to pick my brains! It really pisses me off - other guys can remember to be nice to their girlfriends instead of just using them as walking textbooks!"
That answered that question, then. "Well, um . . ." Charlie wasn't sure what to say. "Um . . . I guess he'll make it up to you sometime . . ." He was a bit embarrassed - Hermione was clearly upset, but he didn't exactly have much practice at dealing with irate women, bemoaning their boyfriends - especially when said boyfriend was his younger brother.
"Oh, please!" Hermione snapped. "He can't even ask me for a date properly - he took me out for a meal on my birthday but that was only because Ginny organized the whole sodding thing, and the last date we had before that was in June! I mean, Harry's always going abroad to see Ginny, and Neville's always going down to see Luna even though he's teaching at Hogwarts most of the time, and even Percy's sneaking off to go and see Penelope at work sometimes and Ron can't even organize a date by himself!"
"Um . . ." Charlie was a little scared. He had never seen Hermione like this before - she was always so in control about things, and she didn't seem the type for ranting. He couldn't agree with her, but he couldn't disagree with her (he knew from experience that whatever he said would be the wrong thing, because that was how women worked when they got angry like that). "I don't really . . ." He trailed off, a little helplessly.
"Oh, my God," said Hermione, a deep blush spreading across her cheeks. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to rant at you! Oh, this is so embarrassing! Please, just forget everything I said - I forgot you were you, and I just talked like you were someone else, if that makes any sense?"
"Well, it didn't at all, but if you want me to forget, I will," Charlie replied, "On the condition that you tell me about Percy and this Penelope person."
"Percy and Penelope? What . . . oh, fudge!" she exclaimed. "Well, you're going to have to forget about it, because it wasn't my secret to tell! No-one's supposed to know anything!"
"And do you normally go around telling everyone's secrets?" teased Charlie.
"No - God, no! I don't know what came over me - I didn't mean to say anything about them - it just slipped out!" Hermione was horrified.
"Hmm, so, Percy managed to get himself a girlfriend," said Charlie. "I wonder what she's like?"
"Oh she's perfectly lovely - a really nice person. She's-" Hermione broke off, slapping her hand across her mouth. "Oh, God! I'm doing it again! You're having this effect on me!" She mock-glared at him from across the table.
"Well, yes, a lot of women do say that I have a strange effect on them," said Charlie, raising his eyebrows.
"Oh, God!" said Hermione, half-laughing, half-horrified. "I really am screwing it up tonight! I didn't mean it that way!"
"What way?" asked Charlie, raising his eyebrows even further, and smirking when she blushed a deeper red.
"Oh, you're impossible!" she squealed. "Anyway, it's all your fault!"
"What's all my fault?" he asked.
"This! Everything! Making me tell everyone's secrets - I've caught your foot-in-mouth disease," she pulled a face at him.
"You have foot in mouth disease?" he asked her. "Why, only this morning you were saying only males get that!"
"Damn you for remembering what I say," she joked.
"So, are you saying that you're a bloke?" he teased.
"I don't know," replied Hermione. "Are you saying that I look like a bloke?"
He studied her body for a second too long, and she blushed. "I . . . um . . . no - you definitely look like a woman to me!" He swore under his breath - why had he said that? They both blushed.
"If you wanted to know a bit more about Penelope," Hermione said, a few moments later, to break the awkward silence that had fallen between them, "she's coming to Sunday lunch at The Burrow tomorrow."
"Bringing her home, eh?" said Charlie. "It must be serious." Hermione chuckled. "That reminds me - I assume you're going, tomorrow?" he asked. She nodded. "Well, it would be a really big favor for me - actually, for both of us - if you didn't mention that I'm staying here? I mean it's not like Mum would ask you, but she'll probably ask me, and I'll just say I'm renting somewhere, just 'cause it'll make things easier."
"What things?" she asked, confused.
"Well, Mum is very old-fashioned, and I think she'd think that the idea of two people - that is, a man and a woman - living together, when they weren't engaged, or married, or whatever, rather inappropriate. She's just - well, you know, and I know, and everyone else who knows that I'm here knows that there's nothing dodgy at all going on with me staying here with you - and I'm very grateful to you for it, don't get me wrong - it means that I don't have to rent some skanky room somewhere - but I think that she'd think that it would be . . . well, just inappropriate really. So, if you want a quiet life, just don't say anything, yeah? It'll just be easier in the long run. But anyway, like I said before, I don't think that she'd ask you or anything," Charlie finished.
"Right . . . OK, then," said Hermione. She knew that Mrs. Weasley disliked the idea of co-habitation between couples who weren't married - and even frowned upon those who were engaged living together, and she didn't want to upset her, for the sake of a couple of months, so she agreed with Charlie not to mention it. "By the way . . . um . . . I hope you don't mind me mentioning it - I don't mean it in a rude way or anything, I was just wondering . . . Ginny said that you weren't going to stay at The Burrow, but she didn't say why . . . so I was wondering, why is that?"
Charlie sighed. "Well, I'm telling everyone that it's because I can get quite badly injured when I'm with the dragons - nothing that doesn't heal up very quickly, just burns and the like, but when it first happens it can look really horrific. And if Mum ever saw me like that . . . well, she'd have forty fits and forbid me from working as a dragon keeper ever again. But I'd end up going back, of course, and then she'd worry herself out of her mind," he said.
"And also?" Hermione prompted gently, as she stood by the sink, waving her wand and making the plates and pans that they had now finished with wash and dry themselves and fly back into the cupboards. "What's the other reason?"
"The other reason is that when I'm there, it . . . it reminds me of when I was a kid. And when Fred was alive and stuff. And I can cope with that for a weekend or whatever, if I'm just popping by for a visit, but I don't think I'd be able to manage with all that for a month and a half," he replied.
Hermione walked over to him and put her arms around his waist. Charlie wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and they stood together for a minute, lost in their own thoughts, each mourning their own loss. "You know," she began, looking up at him. He looked down at her, and they both suddenly became very aware of how close their faces were - they were almost nose to nose.
"Yes?" Charlie said softly, aware of the smell of her shampoo - slightly fruity, and something else he couldn't quite put his finger on.
"Um . . ." she replied, blushing slightly. "I was just thinking that-"
They both jumped three foot in the air as Hermione's clock chimed loudly, and her head knocked into his chin, causing him to bite down on suddenly on his lip. He swore and put a hand to his mouth - blood was pouring from his lip.
"Oh, God! I am so sorry!" exclaimed Hermione. "Oh, blimey, what've I done now? Here -" she pressed a tea-towel onto his lip "have this and sit here, just there on that chair, and just hang on a minute - Dittany! Accio Dittany! Good, right, here it is. Now, would you like me to fix this for you?"
Charlie had been listening to her babbling in amusement - she was quite sweet when she was trying to take control in a crisis. He nodded in answer to her question - he didn't like to open his mouth in case he got a mouthful of blood, but he wasn't in pain at all. However, he didn't have anyway of communicating this to her, and she was obviously a little stressed, thinking that she'd hurt him.
"OK then," she said, coming to stand right in front of him. She removed the tea-towel from his lip, and very gently placed her wand there. She murmured a few spells, then, again ever so gently, dabbed Essence of Dittany on his lip. Finally, she cleaned the blood off his face, enabling her to check her healing. Satisfied with what she saw, she summoned a mirror and held it up for him to see.
"There, good as new! You're a woman of many talents, I must say, Hermione," Charlie said with a smile.
"Yeah - a talent for hurting people!" she replied. "I am so sorry; I really can't apologies enough . I-"
He cut across her. "Seriously! Don't worry about it. And don't insult me! I grew up with six siblings, and now I tame dragons for a living. You can't seriously think I haven't been injured much worse than this before?"
"I guess so," she replied.
"Yeah, no offense Hermione, but you have nothing on an angry dragon. Or, come to think of it, Bill, when he broke my arm that time," Charlie replied.
"Bill broke your arm?" Hermione inquired curiously. "How did he do that?"
"Don't laugh," Charlie began, "but when we were about six and eight, we decided that the best thing in the world would be for us to build a tree house. But first we had to find a tree to put the tree house in - I told you not to laugh! Anyway, we were in one of the trees, and there must've been a weak branch, or something, because he stood on it and started to fall, so he grabbed me, to try and regain his balance, but then I started to fall too, and we ended up falling all the way onto the ground, and he landed on top of my arm and broke it."
Hermione winced in sympathy. "'Course, Mum was able to fix it in a flash," he said. "And that wasn't the worst injury I ever had."
"What was then?" asked Hermione, and they spent the rest of the evening talking about their childhoods. Hermione considered hers, growing up as an only child in a muggle family, perfectly normal, and Charlie's - one of seven in a very, very magical household - the strange one, but of course, it was the other way around for him. Because of this, even the smallest tales of daily life became fascinating to the other person, and they kept talking until nearly midnight.
Charlie tossed and turned, unable to sleep. He didn't know why - he didn't feel unwell, the bed was perfectly comfortable, and the room was neither too hot nor too cold. He wasn't hungry or thirsty, and he there wasn't too much light coming into the room. He sighed and half sat up, turning his pillow over.
He couldn't stop thinking about Hermione. She had been so sweet and friendly tonight - laughing and joking with him, fixing his lip, even when she was ranting about Ron, she was still completely adorable. She had this really cute habit of brushing the ends of her hair out of her eyes, when it fell forward, and looking up at him at the same time.
It wasn't fair. Not only had he fallen for a girl who was taken, the girl's current boyfriend was his brother. So she was doubly unavailable. He punched his pillow in frustration. It wasn't like Ron was overly nice to her either, by the sounds of things.
Charlie didn't have a type - he had had a few girlfriends, but only three of them had been properly serious, and they were all completely different from each other. His first serious girlfriend had been Melissa, during his sixth and seventh years at Hogwarts. She had been a year below him, but a member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, so they had known each other fairly well before they got together. She had had long blonde hair, a cute smile, an interest in Quidditch and, best of all, she didn't really have much of an idea who Bill was, so he didn't have to compete with him in her mind.
They had broken up at the end of his seventh year, both realizing it would be impossible to maintain a relationship with her still at Hogwarts and him working in the real world. They had remained friends, and had written to each other a few times, but, due to his moving about all over the place, they had eventually lost touch.
His second long-term girlfriend, Annette, he had met during the second year of his training as a dragon tamer. She was only about five feet tall, and had short, spiky red hair and a very pretty face. He remembered thinking that she couldn't have weighed more than his broomstick, and wondered how long she would last. That was the last time he ever underestimated a woman. She had been the best in the class, and had a real connection to the dragons. They had dated for about a year and a half, until he discovered that she was seeing his best mate behind his back.
It had taken him a while to have another serious relationship - this time with a girl from the local village, near the reserve, named Lucy. The problem was, she was a muggle, and, eventually it had gotten too hard to pretend and lie about his job and his personal life, and he had left her. It took him a while to get over her - she had been the sweetest woman imaginable, but it was just too hard to have two lives, magical and muggle, and he had eventually decided that it wasn't a good idea to introduce her to the wizarding world, what with the very imminent war with Voldemort. After Harry had killed Voldemort, and the war was over, he went back to the village to try to find her, but she and her family had left town a year or so ago, and no one knew their new address.
Apart from the split with Annette, he had had relatively clean break-ups, and his heart hadn't been broken beyond repair even with her (thought it had taken many months to get over her). He knew though, that if he even went near Hermione, bad things would happen. Plus, it was kind of wrong to be lusting after someone seven years younger than he was.
Think of her as an extension of Ginny - act as if she's your sister, he told himself. And try and get some sleep.
Next morning, up until it was time to leave for The Burrow, he managed to stick to that plan. He got up late, breakfasted whilst Hermione was in the shower, and then she spent the rest of the morning in her room, drying her hair and getting ready, so it was easy to avoid her.
At half-past eleven, she came out, wearing a knee-length denim skirt, and a greeny-blue jumper, with her hair curled into large ringlets. "You look nice," he told her, smiling slightly.
"Thanks, Charlie," she replied. He kept trying to think of her as an extension of his sister, but he wasn't really managing it very well.
Hermione lit the fire, took a handful of floo powder and turned to smile at him. "See you in a few," she said, stepping into the grate and stating "The Burrow!". He followed three minutes after her.
Hermione, Bill, Fleur and his mother and father were already in the kitchen when he arrived; Fleur admiring Hermione's ringlets ("très, très joli – zey suit you very well, 'ermione!"), Bill and his father deep in conversation about some Ministry thing or another ("But that's the thing – he just won't agree to sign!") and his mother with her back to him, pointing her wand at various vegetables in the sink. His father noticed him first, standing up to clap him on the back in greeting. "Charlie, son! Good to have you back in the country!" he said, but before he could reply, his mother was engulfing him in a suffocating hug.
"Oh, Charlie! Why didn't you say you were going to be back? I could have made a cake, or something! Are you back for long? How're the dragons? I hope you've been being very careful around them – I don't want anything happening to you! And what about your hair? Oh, it's in a terrible state – I must give it a cut! And-" Molly Weasley let out a storm of questions and comments about her son, before he was able to prize himself gently from her grasp.
"Mum, I'm fine," he replied. "I'm back for a month and a half or so – I've got some work in Wales, so I'm going to be sticking around for a bit – you can't get rid of me that easily."
"Wales?" his mother began. "What-" But she broke off as Percy and his girlfriend Penelope Clearwater climbed out of the fireplace.
"Good morning, everybody," Percy said, his pompousness coming across slightly because he was nervous. "Everyone, I'd like you to meet Penelope, my girlfriend!" His voice rose slightly on the last word and Charlie had to work hard to keep a smirk from spreading across his face. Penelope – whom he had to admit, with her curly black hair and big blue eyes, was very cute: how had Percy managed to get himself a girlfriend as pretty as she was? – waved nervously.
Molly – her attention diverted from Charlie – smiled warmly at her, sensing her unease. "Hello dear, I'm Molly – Percy's mother," she said. "I must say, it's nice to finally meet you, as Percy's told us so much about you! Right, let me see . . . this is my husband, Arthur, and over here we have Bill and his wife Fleur, and this is Hermione Granger – very good friend of the family – and to your right over there, is Charlie, another of my sons." Everyone smiled and waved as they were introduced, calling hellos across the kitchen, and Penelope began to look a bit less nervous.
There was a thud, and Ron climbed out of the fireplace. "Hi Mum," he said. "Who's that?" he asked, pointing to Penelope.
Molly sighed. "This, Penelope, is my youngest and arguably rudest son, Ron," she said. "Ron, Penelope is Percy's girlfriend, and I do hope you're going to apologize to her for your complete lack of manners!"
Ron apologized, and the house soon became a hive of activity, with people rushing around all over the place, getting the dining room ready for lunch. Molly was in her element, instructing various people to do various things, and muttered her thanks to Hermione when she took the tablecloth into the dining room. In there, Bill and Charlie had stretched the table as they had been asked, and were now competing with each other to conjure up more and more ridiculous chairs (there were only eight, and twelve people were expected for lunch, so their mother had asked them to conjure up some more, but Hermione felt that thrones, beanbags, and what looked suspiciously like an electric chair were not quite what she had in mind).
She half-watched them in amusement, laying the tablecloth out neatly, and chatted briefly to Fleur, who was busy transfiguring some rather wilted tulips into a more spectacular flower arrangement. She was walking into the kitchen, when she turned, remembering a spell that would make things easier for Fleur and called it over her shoulder ("Zank you, 'ermione!") and so she wasn't looking where she was going, and crashed into Ron, who was carrying a big jug of pumpkin juice.
The glass shattered against her head, spilling the juice down her hair, face and top. Ron burst out laughing, and Hermione, outraged that this was his first reaction, shot a jelly-legs jinx at him. He crashed to the ground, and soon stopped laughing. "How dare you laugh at me, Ronald Weasley!" she shrieked. "I'm covered in pumpkin juice!"
"I know, I know," he replied. "I'm sorry, OK? It was an accident! I didn't mean to spill it on you; you didn't have to curse me!"
"For your information, Ronald," said a voice behind them. "The jelly-legs JINX is a jinx, not a curse. And I'd think that an Auror like yourself - even a trainee - would have a pretty nifty shield jinx by now." Ginny came into view. "Furthermore, she didn't jinx you because you spilt juice on her."
"She didn't?" Ron asked, mystified. "Well, why the bloody hell did she, then? Is it about yesterday? 'Cause you said you didn't mind helping me with my essay!" Ginny rolled her eyes, and sighed.
"Come on, Hermione," she took her friend's hand, and pulled her in the direction of the stairs. "I've got a top you can borrow - and you'll need to fix your mascara - it's run a bit." The pair of them disappeared off upstairs.
"A tip, mate," said Charlie, as Bill lifted the jinx and hauled his brother to his feet. "Don't ask a girl on a hot date to come and do your work for you. They don't really appreciate it."
"What the hell would you know about it? It's not like you have a girlfriend," Ron snapped back rudely.
"Yeah, well, I know enough not to upset the one I do have by throwing pumpkin juice all over her the day after I piss her off by making her come round to do my work for me," his brother replied, aggressively.
"You don't know the first thing about Hermione, so don't you dare come swanning back from bleeding Romania or wherever to tell me how to run my life!" snarled Ron. Charlie opened his mouth to retaliate, then stalked off upstairs too.
"Well done, Ron," Bill said sarcastically. "That's three people you've managed to piss off in the space of about three minutes, and it'll very soon be four if Mum sees the state of this floor."
"Oh, shut up," Ron replied, pointing his wand at the floor and sweeping all of the broken glass into a pile. "Reparo!" he muttered, and the glass pieces held themselves precariously into the shape of a jug. "Anyway, if I didn't upset Hermione by tipping juice all down her, then how did I upset her?"
Bill looked at him in amazement, but Fleur just looked pityingly at him. "Come on, Beel," she said, taking him by the arm and ignoring Ron. "Let's go to see if your muzzer needs any 'elp with ze lunch."
They walked off, and Ron was left staring at the jug, which gave a precarious wobble then collapsed again. He sighed. It just was not his day.
Upstairs, Hermione had stripped off her soaked jumper, cleaned and dried her hair and face and repaired her mascara (the only make-up she had bothered with) and was lying on Ginny's bed, wearing just her bra and skirt. "I just don't believe him," Ginny said, rifling through her wardrobe. "I mean, he's such a jerk, to laugh at you like that!"
Hermione nodded in agreement. "Yeah . . . he doesn't understand that I'm mad at him for laughing, not for spilling the stuff on me. And yesterday, he turned up in my fireplace and was like 'oh, Harry's not here . . . I want you to come over!', which I did, 'cause it sounded like a date, right?" Ginny nodded. "Well, I went over, and spent most of my time writing his coursework essay for him!"
Ginny shook her head. "He does not deserve you at all. He can be such a pillock sometimes," she said. Hermione laughed, and caught sight of the ring glinting on her friend's finger.
"Oh my God, I completely forgot!" she squealed. "How-" she began, but Ginny silenced her with a finger.
"Not a word until I've told everyone!" she said, putting a finger to her lips. Hermione pretended to sulk. They chatted about other things, and Ginny found her a top. "How about this?" she asked, holding up a cream coloured blouse.
"It's really nice," said Hermione. "I don't really mind though - I'll wear whatever."
"Have this, then," Ginny said, throwing it over so that it landed next to Hermione on the bed.
She stood up, as there was a knock on the door. "Come in!" she called, without thinking. Charlie entered.
"Mum says to tell you to not to worry about Ron, and that it's dinner in five . . ." his voice trailed off, staring at Hermione's body in just her bra.
"Five what? Five bananas?" teased Hermione, before realizing what he was staring at and blushing furiously. Charlie turned a deep red, muttered his apologies and rushed out.
"Oh God oh God oh God!" said Hermione, mortified. "I can't believe Charlie saw me in just my underwear! Oh my God! How embarrassing! Oh, I can't believe this!" She pulled on the blouse, but was too flustered to do it up properly, and Ginny had to point out that the buttons were not in the right button holes.
"Oh, God!" said Hermione, wringing her hands.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, girl!" said Ginny, waving her wand at Hermione so that all her buttons were done up correctly. "Pull yourself together! I'm sure he's seen girls in more of a state of undress than that - the only thing you were missing was a top, after all - and you look fine. And anyway, it's only Charlie," she rolled her eyes.
"Only Charlie! Only Charlie! I have to live with him, you know!" Hermione squealed in reply.
"Oh, whatever," said Ginny. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about. And anyway, with you living together just be grateful that he didn't come across you in the shower or whatever."
"GINNY!" said Hermione, appalled.
"Oh, shush. It'll be fine. Now come and have lunch - I'm starving!"
As Hermione entered the dining room, she bumped into Charlie, and, to her intense embarrassment, ended up doing a little dance with him when they both tried to go right, then left, then right. "I'm sorry," she muttered, taking a big step to the left to get past him.
"Not a problem," he replied. "And I'm sorry about earlier - you know, upstairs when I-"
She cut across him. "Oh, don't worry about it - just forget it," she said, and went to sit down. She ended up sitting next to Penelope on her right and Ginny on her left, with Bill opposite her. She conversed with all three of them during the meal, taking particular care not to talk to Charlie or Ron, but for different reasons. Though she had reassured Charlie, she was still embarrassed - she suspected that Ginny would have coped with the situation better than she had, having grown up with six brothers. Hermione had had no siblings, and, when she had gone to Hogwarts, she had shared a dormitory with two other girls, so nothing like that had ever happened to her before. But then, she reasoned to herself, she was very likely to blow this out of all proportions - Charlie would most likely have forgotten it by this time tomorrow -so really, she'd be best off taking Ginny's advice and forgetting about it herself. She was only minus a top, for Merlin's sake.
Ron, however, she was ignoring for a completely different reason - and he responded by sulking. How unusual.
They had just finished the main course, and Molly was just about to go and see to dessert, when Harry stood up. "Um . . . hi everyone," he said, rather nervously. "I . . . um . . . I have an announcement to make. Er . . . Ginny and I are going to . . . that is, me and Ginny are . . . oh, what I'm trying to say is, Ginny and I are engaged!"
There was total silence around the table.
Dun dun dun! Sorry, couldn't resist the (sort of) cliffie! :P SO SORRY about the wait - I was a bit ill and didn't really feel much like sitting at a computer, sorry. But I'm all better now, and here's an extra long chapter to make up for it :)
Thank you very much to all my lovely reviewers - your comments were really appreciated and I love each and every one of them! :D Reviews are the only payment fanfic writers get . . .
Dunno when I'll get the chance to update next, but I'll try not to make you wait as long, this time :S
Review! x