Whoops ... sorry guys, a little thing called "real life" got in the way of uploading this. It's only been like a week and half though, so that's really not too bad! Yay!

Now, just so you all know - in a week's time, I'm going to start this thing called NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. This means I will be spending EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE SECOND typing away, trying to write at least fifty thousand words of a novel between 1st and 30th November. While I have almost finished writing this fic, and plan to have it done by next Monday, actually having time to upload all the chapters at my current rate of one chapter every two days may not be possible. So, I have a question for you - would you rather get all the rest of the chapters pretty much at once, so they are all up by next Monday, or would you rather wait and keep getting them one at a time - on an unpredictable schedule?

While you ponder this, hear are today's shoutouts: werewolfatemyphoenix, Sapphire-Rosethorn, ctc, Delia-of-the-Oysters, RiddikulusSnuffles, alicecullenisrealinmyworld, yellow 14, GinnyPotter4evr, ForbiddenLove7, whispered touches, ermireallydontcare, glowyrm, J G Wentworth (I'm honoured you think that - and don't worry, that never crossed my mind!), and 91698padfoot. You guys are AMAZING!

41. Emerald Green Lace

Thursday

Ginny is already at the table when Harry gets home from his night shift. "Hey there," he says with a smile, and he leans down to kiss her before sitting down, just because he can.

"Morning," she says. "How was work?"

"Boring. How are you?"

"Fine. Mum dragged me out shopping after the meeting yesterday for this stupid Ball. I couldn't work out if she was trying to be helpful, or if she was still punishing me for disappearing."

Mrs Weasley had not been pleased when Ginny returned from Luna's—the words "irresponsible", "foolish" and "worried sick" had been used rather a lot—and though Ginny left on good terms, you never knew whether Mrs Weasley had quite forgiven you or not.

"Ouch, shopping torture," says Harry, shuddering at the thought. "How bad was it?"

"She had her heart set on me wearing this green lacy thing." says Ginny, rolling her eyes. "I told her I'd rather wear something from this century. And anyway, I don't wear green."

"Why not?"

"It makes me look like a Christmas decoration, that's why not."

"I like green," says Harry, looking a little disappointed.

"So do I," says Ginny. "On you."

Harry snorts. "So does everyone. I suppose your mother has already decided I'm wearing green dress robes to this Ball, like always?"

Ginny shakes her head.

"No?"

"Nope. You're going to wear your nice black ones with the gold embroidery. They'll go really nicely with the dress I bought."

Harry sighs. "Of course."

Not particularly exciting, but necessary. I promise that the next couple of chapters are funnier, and after that the plot will kick back in (amazing, I know!)

Please don't forget to leave a review! xoxo