The hotel room that Charlie had rented was small, but it had two beds so it would do.

When Charlie tried to apologize for the room being so small, Victoria waved at him dismissively. "Charlie, have you already forgotten how cramped the Burrow can be at times? This is huge in comparison, especially since I don't have to worry about using the bathroom after Fred and George."

"Are they still doing their little experiments?"

"Yeah. Mum is trying hard to get them focused on something else, but honestly, the things that they come up with are quite smart. They've mentioned about maybe opening up a shop like Zonko's when they're older."

"That wouldn't surprise me one bit," Charlie said with a laugh. "They would probably be even better than Zonko's with the things that they come up with. You gonna be okay out here while I hop in the shower?"

"Oh thank God, it's about time you washed that stinky ass."

"Shut up."

A few moments after Charlie closed the bathroom door, there was a knock at the door. It sounded rather urgent.

Victoria had barely had time to open the door before a blur of bushy hair hugged her tight and almost knocked her to the ground.

"Hermione?" Victoria asked in shock. "What are you doing here?!"

"Charlie asked me to come, he wrote me and told me everything that had happened, and figured that you could use someone to cheer you up."

"Well, he was definitely right about that, and I won't be totally bored tonight now. Charlie is going on a date. I kind of set him up with my Healer." Victoria giggled.

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Hermione said, shaking her head in amusement. "You know that eleven-year-olds aren't supposed to know that much about this kind of thing, right?"

"Bill is a hopeless romantic, I learned a lot of it from him."

About thirty minutes later, Charlie got out of the shower. "How do I look?" He was wearing a grey suit with a matching tie, and Victoria shook her head. "Charlie, you don't know anything about color coordination, do you?" She grabbed her wand and flicked it at him. "Caeruleum." She said, and the suit changed from gray to a royal blue. "There, that's much better, don't you think, Mione?"

Hermione nodded her head in agreement. "I think that it makes the color of his hair pop out a lot more." She answered.

"Charlie, I never want to see you in a gray suit again, it makes you look almost as old as Dad."

"Okay, well that's the last time I take advice from Percy."

"You shouldn't have taken advice from Percy in the first place!" Victoria cried out in exasperation. "Charlie, are you serious? I never took you for an idiot."

"Ouch." Charlie placed a hand on his heart. "You cut me to the quick, dear sister. And to think that I'm taking you back to Romania with me." He smoothed out the wrinkles on his suit. "You sure that the two of you are going to be okay while I'm gone?"

"Charlie, it's not like anyone is going to come in and kidnap us. Besides, even if something like that were to happen, the twins taught me enough hexes that I think I should be able to protect myself."

"We'll be fine." Hermione insisted. "You just go and have fun. It's not like this is going to turn into a Home Alone situation."

"A what?" Charlie gave her a confused expression, and she gave an almost sad sigh. "You know, with how interested your father is in the Muggle world, you would have thought you'd seen a Muggle movie or two."

"We have seen Muggle movies!" Charlie protested. "Last Christmas we watched Gone with the Wind."

"Let me rephrase that. You need to watch current Muggle movies, not movies from over fifty years ago."

"Quit, you two." Victoria shooed her brother towards the door. "Go on now or you'll be late. Stop somewhere on the way and get her some roses or something, and for Godric's sake, don't say anything that Percy may have told you to say."

"Don't worry, I already learned my lesson about that."

"Well, even I could have told you that," Hermione added. "I don't know if you've noticed Charlie, but Percy isn't exactly the best when it comes to matters of the heart. If it's something scholarly then it's a different story."

"I know that. When I was training to work with the dragons, he helped me with my tests and things."

"Quit stalling and go!" Victoria laughed, giving her brother a light shove out the door. "And don't think that you have to come back early on my account. If Felicity wants you to come back to her place for a nightcap or something, then by all means go."

"Are you trying to get me to sleep with her?"

"Charlie, you're a pervert, you know what I meant." She shut the door, rolling her eyes as she heard Charlie laughing as he made his way down the hall. "Brothers are annoying, be glad that you don't have any, Hermione."

"I would have loved to have siblings," Hermione said. "Life was very boring when I was little. Although I don't think that I would have enjoyed my brother turning my teddy bear into a live spider very much."

"Yeah…you can blame Fred for that, Ron was traumatized about it for weeks, there's some times when I think that he got some kind of PTSD or something from it."

"Was it a cute spider at least?"

"Mione, it was a spider, I don't think that anyone was concerned as to whether it was cute or not."

"I'm just saying. Some spiders are adorable."

"Yeah, good luck telling Ron that," Victoria said with a snort. "He won't get within ten feet of a little spider unless he has a bloody blowtorch or something."

"Are you sure that you aren't exaggerating just a little bit?"

Victoria gave her friend a look. "Hermione, you do realize that this is Ron that we're talking about, right?"

"Well…maybe you're right."

"Speaking of my brother, I've noticed that you've spent quite a bit of time around him lately."

Hermione's cheeks flushed a bit. "What are you talking about? I hang around Harry all the time, and Ron is always with him."

"Yes, but it seemed to me that you were trying to seek Ron out a bit when he was by himself. Do you perhaps have a crush on him?"

"I do not! And besides, even if I did, I could say the same thing about you and Blaise!"

"Blaise? Hermione, you have got to be kidding me!"

"Victoria, you can't even deny it, and why should you? You two have very good chemistry together."

Victoria bit her lip. "Maybe not anymore." She murmured.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what happened over the break, Hermione. I hurt him and Quincy, really badly too. I'm surprised that they still want anything to do with me."

Hermione squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. "They're not idiots, Tori, they understand why you acted the way that you did. I suppose that this is partly my fault, I'm the one that gave you the information about the ring."

"Hermione, how could you blame yourself? You weren't even there when things went down."

"And you weren't in control of yourself when you hurt Blaise and Quincy now, were you?"

'Well…no, I suppose that I wasn't."

"See? So it wasn't your fault. If you're looking to blame someone, then blame the spirit that was in the ring."

"Fine, fine. It was strange though, it was like I was there but I also wasn't, like I was looking at myself in a foggy mirror or something, I can't really explain it."

"I think that I sort of understand what you mean. When someone else is in control of your body, you turn into their puppet basically."

"That's what I felt like. Like, I knew what I was doing and the things that were going on, but I couldn't do anything to stop them, if I tried to move my body in a way that she didn't like, it was like I was pushed further back into the recesses of my mind, so eventually, I think that I just let her take over so that I didn't disappear completely….does that make sense to you?"

"It does. But the important thing is that you triumphed over her in the end."

"Well, not exactly, I'm pretty sure that Dumbledore knocked me out or something."

"You came back to yourself in the end anyway, and that's all that matters." Hermione gave her a hug. "Now, I'm starving, so let's order some food, and then we can find a movie to watch or something."

"That sounds perfect."