Hi all! Welcome to Chapter Eight of Water Worries. This is a story request from a lovely person called xxxRainLoverxxx, so credit to the idea goes to her. She is a very talented writer but unfortunately due to negative reviews she no longer likes to post her stories which is a true shame for everyone. This story is complete and is Thirteen Chapters long, updates should be weekly unless something drastic happens.
Summary: Harry has a fear of water, when his nightmares manage to get even Ron's attention Ron comes up with a plan for how to keep Harry's mind off the second task. What happens when they go too far? AU. Contains Spanking. No Slash.
Warning: Story contains parental spanking of a teenager, if this isn't your cup of tea, don't read it.
Disclaimer: I do not now, nor have I ever, owned Harry Potter – as much as I'd like to I sadly do not. I did not make any money from this story, and I don't intend too. All characters and recognisable things belong to JK Rowling not me – as sad as that is for me.
A huge thank you to my wonderful Beta Jules Ann, who is again herself a very talented writer on here. Though she doesn't know Harry Potter, I am slowly trying to convert her.
~o~
It wasn't until after dinner that the prank balloons finished popping. Although the teachers that had been targeted had moved classrooms, the sounds of bangs and screams could still be heard in the corridors and walking between classes was definitely a hazard.
Back in the Common Room Hermione fixed her two friends a pleading look, "I promise I'm not getting on your case, but no more prank items in the classrooms please, I really don't want you two to get in trouble."
Hermione had such an honest pleading look in her eyes all the boys could do was nod.
"We've already agreed not to do anymore pranks in the Professor's classrooms," Harry assured Hermione.
Ron nodded in agreement with Harry, "yeah, neither of us want to get in trouble," he assured her.
Hermione was able to relax then and gave Harry and Ron a hesitant smile, "so um, what are you planning next?" She asked.
Harry and Ron shared a look before looking around the Common Room, "oi! Fred, George, get over here!" Ron hollered.
Harry caught sight of Ginny and waved her over.
Fred and George came over first and looked down at Ron and Harry, "what are our two young protégés up to?" George queried intrigued.
"Broom race," Ron explained as Ginny joined them.
"Angelina, Alicia, Katie, get over here!" Fred yelled.
They had to sit quite close to one another to all fit on the two couches and two armchairs, but to solve this issue George simply picked his little sister up and dropped her on Harry's lap, laughing at their bright red blushes. Fred and Ron joined in laughing at the looks on the pair's faces.
When George dumped Ginny on his lap, Harry found his arms automatically going around her waist to steady her, so she didn't fall off. As much as it embarrassed him having her on his lap, part of him didn't actually want her to get off.
Despite her blush Ginny still managed to glare at her brothers, but she didn't move to get off, she'd never admit it, but she kind of liked sitting on Harry's lap.
Fred grinned when Harry just accepted Ginny on his lap and Ginny didn't get off and gave a slight nod to his twin. "Now we are all sitting comfortably, let's begin," he announced, giving a slight wag of his eyebrows at Harry and Ginny.
With that, the nine of them sat and planned what was going to be an epic broomstick race. Hermione even added some suggestions, wanting to show Harry and Ron that, though she didn't agree with what they were doing, if it helped Harry, she would support them. With Harry riding the firebolt it wouldn't be a fair race, so they decided on a staggered start along with Harry having to perform a lot of aerial acrobatics. Dobby was dispatched to The Burrow to fetch Charlie's old broom, the broom Ron rode the most, and it was decided Ginny would be sitting behind Harry, to give Harry another handicap. They tried to persuade Hermione to join but she absolutely refused, she decided she'd be waiting by the doors to the Great Hall and be there to declare the winner.
The group turned in once they had their plan set out, all of them wanted to be well rested in order to win. With everything they had planned it would be as fair of a race as they could make it, even with Fred, George, and Ron having the oldest and slowest brooms.
The next morning found Fred, Angelina, Alicia, George, Katie, and Harry all dressed in their quidditch robes, with Ginny wearing Kate's resized spare set and Ron wearing Wood's old robes. Hermione wished everyone good luck as she hurried down to the Great Hall, waiting outside the doors. They all mounted up, Ginny climbing on behind Harry and wrapping her arms around him tightly.
Lee Jordan had waited behind to set the race off, "Ron, Fred, George, go now!" He called.
All three of them tore off down the corridor, pushing their brooms to the limits.
After three minutes Lee set Angelina, Alicia, and Katie off as well.
Finally, Harry and Ginny were allowed to go. "Ready Gin?" Harry called.
Ginny gave a determined nod and clung onto Harry just a bit tighter. "Ready!" She shouted back.
Taking a deep breath Harry bent low over his broom and felt Ginny following his movement before he pushed the firebolt into a tight corkscrew. This had been his challenge, on each floor he needed to perform a different move. Here on the seventh floor, he had to corkscrew his way around it before he could move down onto the sixth floor. Fred, George, and Ron were allowed just to fly straight down all the floors, but Katie, Alicia, and Angelina had to slalom around the fifth floor, and rise and dive around the second floor.
Ginny pressed her face close to Harry's back, doing her best to make herself as aerodynamic as she could for him. Harry was corkscrewing at a dizzying speed, but she felt pure exhilaration. When Harry finally righted the broom and they shot down the stairs to the sixth floor she couldn't help letting out an excited cheer of joy.
Harry wasn't surprised by Ginny's cheer, though Fred, George, and Ron didn't know it, he knew Ginny had been sneaking her brother's brooms to fly since she was a little girl. "Ready for the next one?" He called over the rushing air.
"Bring it!" Ginny confirmed.
Harry put on a burst of speed as they reached the sixth floor and pulled the broom handle up sharply, pulling a tight loop-the-loop. He went as fast as he could control and loop-the-looped around the whole floor. Down on the fifth floor, Harry slalomed around it, putting the firebolt through its paces. When they were zooming down the stairs to the fourth floor Harry checked in with Ginny, making sure she was ready again, getting her confirmation he shut his eyes tightly and let Ginny direct them. By her cheer he knew they'd overtaken at least one person and, before they got to the stairs to the third floor, another cheer let him know they were now in fifth place.
Shooting down the stairs to the third floor Ginny looked over her shoulder, "I'll be your eyes again!" She told Harry.
Trusting Ginny, Harry whirled the broom around and shot off like a bullet, flying backwards, they swept past Katie barely missing colliding with a suit of armour. Pressing themselves as low to the broom as they could they flew over Fred, laughing in delight. They were now in third place!
Spinning the broom back around to face the right direction, they dove down the next flight of stairs, onto the second floor where he immediately began rising and diving, in front of him, he could see George.
"Come on Harry," Ginny urged.
Slowly, almost painfully slowly, they were catching up to George, and within ten feet of the stairs to the first floor they managed to duck under him to get in front. Just for fun, and to celebrate Harry corkscrewed them down the stairs, his own mood buoyed by Ginny's unrestrained delight. Righting them he slowed just a little, "you getting up?" He checked.
"Yup," Ginny agreed, and carefully she climbed to her feet, balancing on the broom. Fred and George had thought it a good joke when declaring that on the first floor one of them had to surf down it, neither realising just how competent of a flyer Ginny was. "Full speed ahead Harry!" Ginny insisted.
Once more trusting Ginny, Harry pushed the broom as fast as it could go, feeling one of her hands resting on his shoulder to help her hold her balance. As they rounded the corner, they caught sight of Angelina and within less than a minute they whipped past her and zoomed through into the Great Hall.
Ginny cheered in delight and remained standing as Harry took a lap of the Great Hall, Hermione, Lee, Neville, Dean, and Seamus leading the hall in cheering.
Angelina zipped into the hall next and took her own lap, laughing seeing Ginny was the one standing.
When Fred and George arrived and saw it was Ginny that was surfing, they looked at their sister in shock before bursting into laughter, zooming up to the pair. "You've been holding out on us little sister!" They accused.
"Not my fault you never invited me to play quidditch with you," Ginny laughed.
"Touché little sister, touché," the twins laughed.
Ron looked a little dumbstruck to see Ginny standing but saw the funny side of it as well.
"COME DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!" Came McGonagall's booming voice, she had clearly cast a sonorous charm on herself.
Harry paused letting Ginny sit back down before, as one, the group dove to the floor, landing and dismounting with huge grins on their faces.
Minerva cancelled the sonorous charm and stared at her Gryffindor quidditch team, Ron, and Ginny in fury. "Explain yourselves, all of you!" She demanded.
Angelina stepped forward, "well there's been no quidditch this year, so we were worried we were getting rusty. Harry's the only one who's had a chance to fly," she pointed out.
Alicia moved forward to join Angelina, "we decided we really needed at least some flying practice, just to keep up our skills," she supplied.
"We want to make sure next year you'll be able to keep that quidditch trophy too," Angelia continued.
"We know Ron and Ginny aren't on the team, but Ron's a fair keeper so we're hoping he'll try out next year," Alicia stated seeing her Head of House look at Ron.
"Ginny insisted she could fly well, but the twins weren't sure, so we had her ride behind Harry, we're definitely going to ask her to substitute next year," Angelina finished.
Minerva found herself completely lost for words at the audacity of her Gryffindors.
Albus strolled down to join his Deputy and the gathered Gryffindor Quidditch team, "what I'm certain your Head of House is trying to say is, whilst we applaud your attempts to remain in tip top flying condition, brooms are only to be ridden outdoors. You leave me no choice but to award ten points each for some truly spectacular flying and urge you to eat a quick breakfast so you can return to your dormitories and change into your uniforms and put your brooms away. Do try not to be late or I fear those points you've just earned might be removed," he finished smiling warmly at them.
"Yes Headmaster!" They chimed together. They all hurried to the Gryffindor table, beyond thrilled to have gotten away with it. The hall was filled with talk of the race, a fair few of their fellow students had still been walking down to breakfast and were very impressed with the parts of the race they'd seen.
After breakfast they hurried, on foot, up to Gryffindor tower, getting changed quickly and heading out to their classes, not wanting to be late.
All day all anyone could talk about was the race, Hagrid even congratulated Ron and Harry in Care of Magical Creatures.
They were still in high spirits by the time lunchtime rolled around, Ginny coming over to sit with the trio first, quickly followed by Fred and George and the Gryffindor chasers. None of them knew exactly how it started, perhaps it was Fred, throwing a corner of his sandwich at Katie for teasing him about not knowing Ginny could fly, or maybe it was when Ron slipped off the table and knocked his plate into Seamus Finnegan's face; but Dean shouted food fight and mayhem commenced.
Though it started just at the Gryffindor table, it didn't take long for Hufflepuff to get drawn in, Ravenclaw were dragged in shortly after, and finally even Slytherin were taking part. The teachers were trying desperately to regain control of the students, but to no avail. Even McGonagall and Snape setting off loud noisemaker bangs were completely ignored.
When a splatter of mashed potatoes from a shepherd's pie landed on McGonagall's cheek, she furiously set off the loudest noisemaker yet. Finally getting the students to stop, all of them stilling almost as one. "You will all clean up this hall, I do not want to see a single speck of food remaining. You will not use magic," she ordered in a dangerously icy tone. She conjured, dustpans, brushes, mops, cloths, buckets, sponges, and scrub brushes, summoning soap, and filling the bucket with water. She sent the conjured cleaning supplies towards the students and under her unrelenting stare, they got to work cleaning up the mess they had made.
With the teachers all striding amongst the students, making sure no one was slacking off, there was very little conversation. They all tried hard to avoid meeting one another's eyes as it would generally prompt a peel of badly repressed giggles or a half-strangled burst of chuckles.
It hadn't been part of their plans, but both Harry and Ron felt that the food fight had been simply brilliant.
Once the Great Hall was cleaned to the Professors high standards the students were permitted to return to their dormitories to shower and change their robes. It wasn't until they were safely back in their Common Room that Ron, Harry, Fred, George, and Ginny all burst into laughter. Fred, George, and Ron claimed it had been them that started it, mock fighting and arguing as if one of them had been responsible for them all winning an order of Merlin. Harry and Ginny were clutching each other in their laughter, holding onto one another for support.
Hermione eventually chivvied them up to their dormitories to get showered and cleaned up, reminding them they did still have lessons to attend. Ron complaining that they should have stretched out the cleaning to cover all of the afternoon classes.
~o~
So, there you go, that was Chapter Eight. Please review to let me know what you thought. I really hope you enjoy this story as I certainly had a lot of fun writing it! A slice of Molly Weasley's Treacle tart for those who do review!