Chapter Thirteen

The next morning, Ginny was woken up eight minutes before her alarm by the sound of her cell phone ringing. She groaned, felt clumsily around on her bedside table until she felt the vibration of her phone under her fingers, and squinted at the caller ID with bleary eyes.

Ginny huffed a sigh. "Of course," she grumbled, accepting the call and holding the phone up to her ear. "Hermione this had better be the most important phone call I've ever taken."

"Morning, Ginny," Hermione's voice crackled through the speaker. She sounded a little bustling and, of course, very awake. "Sorry to call you so early but I'm leaving for work in a bit and I thought over the trip I could hear about your night."

Ginny rolled over, switching her phone from ear to ear as she did so. "Harry's still sleeping," she muttered.

"Then move to another room!" Hermione exclaimed, and Ginny heard her heels clicking against the floor in the background. "You two live in a giant house and I will not be denied here."

"Yeah well get used to it," Ginny grumbled. "I'll talk to you later, Hermione, I'm going to sleep for six more minutes. Bye."

Ginny ignored Hermione's indistinct outbursts as she placed the phone on the bedside table and flopped back down on the pillow. Harry was staring blearily at her.

"Morning, babe," he said, smiling sleepily. "Was that Hermione?"

"Yeah," Ginny confirmed, pecking Harry on the cheek. "Now shush, I'm going to sleep for five more minutes."

When Ginny got to work, George wasn't there yet. She let herself in and started dusting things, hoping that George would get there soon and give her something more interesting to do; Ginny hated dusting more than almost anything. At least Hermione wasn't there bothering her again; Hermione was Ginny's best friend, but sometimes she was a little nosy.

Ginny was up on the ladder tidying up some of the stock when a tap on the window nearly startled her into falling on her ass. She climbed carefully down the ladder as the tapping continued, wondering who on earth would send George an owl at this hour of the morning. George was a notoriously late riser, so any people trying to get a hold of him before ten were wasting their time. Hurrying to open the window, Ginny let the owl in, and it fluttered spastically around for a moment before finally settling on a shelf at Ginny's eye level.

"What a good bird you are," she crooned, untying the scroll from its leg and patting its head gently. "Now git, little man."

The bird flew out the window, and Ginny shut the glass again behind the little brown owl. She looked down at the scroll, hoping she could maybe find a clue about who might have sent it. To her surprise, it wasn't addressed to George; her name was on the outside. She carefully broke through the tape which had been used to seal the letter (which was pretty unusual; for a second she thought maybe it was from George, as half the time he couldn't be arsed to make a proper seal) and was surprised by the handwriting inside; it was unrecognizable.

Ginny,

Last night was fun. Hope that won't sound too scandalous to the boyfriend. Also, hope it isn't too forward of me to send you a little note. I just told the owl to head to WWW, so I hope your brother isn't reading this. If I remember George properly, he doesn't usually let a joke pass unmade. Anyway, I was wondering if maybe you, Harry, and Hermione would like to go to the Puddlemere match on Saturday with me? I've got sort of an in with them and they'd give me free tickets if I asked. Of course, if Hermione's mystery man (who I suspect is Ron) would like to come too, that would be spiffing. And George too but I think Alicia's coming back soon (I do talk to some people from school) so he might not want to. Have a nice day at work. Let's be new friends, all right?

Oliver

Ginny grinned to herself, folding up the note and putting it in her pocket as she moved back toward the ladder she had abandoned in her quest for the owl. What a nice guy Oliver had turned out to be! Who even wrote notes anymore? Well, Ginny thought, Hermione did, but that didn't count as they were all work memos.

Just as Ginny reached the shelf she had been working on before Oliver's note came, the front door banged open and George came bustling in, as full of activity as ever.

"Morning, Georgey," Ginny called, purposely trying to annoy him. Sometimes it felt nice to get back at him.

"Hi, Gin," he replied, and immediately Ginny felt cowed. She hated that nickname. "You're early."

"Yeah, well, I got a lot of sleep last night and Hermione woke me up early this morning so I thought I'd come in," Ginny explained, straightening the last of the Lifting Drinks (which George had shamelessly lifted from the old Willy Wonka film) and beginning to climb back down the ladder. "Sorry, I guess. I haven't done any damage."

"I should hope not, I'm not paying you to ruin things," George snorted, unwinding his scarf and hanging it up on the hat rack. "Wait, why would Hermione wake you- OH!"

Ginny cursed under her breath. She'd subconsciously been hoping that George wouldn't remember.

"How was your night out, then?" he asked, grinning and moving toward her a little at a time. "Come on, you can tell me. Hermione doesn't really see me as one of the girls yet so I don't feel obligated to relay information to her."

Ginny gave a grudging chuckle. "All right, if you leave me alone I'll tell you." George nodded rapidly, batting his eyelashes in an off-target imitation of Hermione. "It was fine. Oliver's nice company, and we talked and danced and such, and then I went home and put Harry to bed. Nothing special, I guess. He's invited me and basically everyone I know to go to the Puddlemere match on Saturday."

"Wow," George huffed. "He's not just nice."

"Shut up," Ginny laughed, shoving her brother playfully. "He really is."