The following week passed by in a flutter. After the first day at Grimmauld Place Harry learned that it was imperative to wake up well ahead of Ron and beat him to the Burrow. That was because Mrs. Weasley had a list of tasks on her to-do list and the earlier he arrived the more options he had. The first day he had gotten stuck looking at fabric swatches with Fleur for the new curtains she planned to install in the living room. Ron got to sort through the RSVP’s for the wedding with Tonks who drilled him about every defense against the dark arts class they had taken and asked for his input on new lessons.
Meanwhile, Fred and George went out of their way to make Percy’s life a nightmare. Oddly they treated Penelope with extreme kindness. Perhaps it was because she was blind to the torment they had unleashed on her husband. She was thoroughly insistent that Percy spend as much time with his family as possible. This included allowing Fred and George to test their products on him. Percy seemed to lose his backbone where Penelope was concerned and did everything according to her bidding. All the while Pépère had taken to the task Fred and George had assigned him with an ardor.
Percy had been knocked around several times by Pépère before realizing that it was intentional. Thereafter, whenever he saw Pépère coming he would jump behind random objects. Pépère for his part did amazingly well at sniffing Percy out; it had become quite the game of cat and mouse. Pépère liked his task so much that by the last few days before the wedding he had taken to sleeping with the ghoul in the attic so that he could spend all his time at the Burrow searching Percy out. Harry let Fred and George know that whatever they had promised Pépère was well worth it as he had been doing a splendid job.
Notwithstanding the antics of those around him, Harry’s mind was firmly fixed on Ginny. She had not changed her behavior towards him in anyway and his befuddlement over that had continued to grow. One day before the wedding Harry worked up enough courage to seek out Ginny to discuss their moment on the porch. On his way to her room he was startled by a white ghoulish thing emerging from the kitchen as a raspy wheezing sound of an old man laughing and hammering a stick on the floor came from within. Upon closer inspection he noticed that the white ghoul was none other than Percy covered in flour. A glance in the kitchen verified that Pépère was the wheezing old man. The odd thing was that Penelope was holding an empty bag of flour and the twins were standing in the corner of the kitchen in stunned silence.
Being that he was now used to seeing Percy in awkward situations Harry continued on his way without feeling the need to ask for an explanation. Once he had reached Ginny’s room he hesitated; not wanting to have another run-in with Hermione. Before he had the chance to knock Ginny had thrown the door open and walked straight into him.
“Harry! I’m so sorry, are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” he reassured her, “Could I talk with you a moment?”
She had backtracked into her room and waved him inside.
“Yes, Harry?”
“About that night on the porch…”
“That’s right!” she had shouted slapping her head, “I forgot to give you your jacket.”
She leapt across her bed and dug deep into the clothes piled on the floor of her closet producing his much wrinkled jacket.
“I’ve been meaning to give it back to you but we’ve been so busy that I kept forgetting.”
“It’s no problem.”
A moment passed in complete silence between them. Before he had the chance she did the oddest thing, she gave him a sisterly hug.
“Thank you for giving me a shoulder to lean on that night Harry, it was incredibly gentlemanly of you.”
Gentlemanly, yeah right!
“I’m glad that we’ve become buddies,” she told him, “I really needed a no complications friend right now.”
A no complications friend, is that what he was?
“So are you ready to walk down the aisle with me?”
The alarm over the change in topic must have shown on his face but Ginny took it in good humor.
“At Bill and Fleur’s wedding tomorrow,” she had teasingly clarified.
“Yes, of course I am.”
“Great, so I’ll see you then,” she told him as she ushered him out of her room and closed the door behind him.
Harry felt a strange emptiness as he stood outside of Ginny’s door. Had she even realized that he wanted to kiss her that night on the porch? She couldn’t have. That was the only plausible explanation for her behavior. She had delegated him into the role of her buddy, her no complications friend. Her feelings for him had changed drastically and that was…great. There was no reason to feel hallow inside. Harry lost track of time as he stood rooted to the spot outside of Ginny’s door contemplating his awkward situation.
“Harry, mate, I’ve been looking for you!” Ron informed him as he was trying to catch his breath.
“Right then,” Ron cheerfully told him before issuing him a strange command, “Cover your ears!”
Before Harry could ask why the reason came, the sound of a blow horn seemed to reverberate throughout the entire Burrow. The thought of the Burrow crashing down around them flashed through Harry’s mind but before he could act Ginny had once again thrown her door open and walked headlong into him.
“Harry! Sorry!” she squeaked at him for the second time.
He gave her a dull grin and refused to meet her eyes.
“A game of quidditch is it?” she looked to Ron for confirmation.
“Blow horn it is!” Ron replied excitedly.
“Great, I’ll go see whose playing,” Ginny yelled over her shoulder as she was already half-way down the stairs in quite the excited state.
“Blow horn?” Harry asked Ron, feeling that he was missing something.
“That’s Bill and Charlie’s secret code for quidditch,” Ron explained, “When we were little they’d send out some sort of obnoxious sound and we would all meet up at the paddock for some game or another.”
Harry, who was growing used to the many eccentricities of the Weasley family found he was amused yet again by the creativity of the young Weasley’s. His amusement was tampered when the thought of Dudley’s favorite game, clobber Harry over the head, came to mind. A blow horn would have been a nice warning, he thought to himself.
“Move it you lot!”
“Get your brooms!”
Fred and George issued the commands before thundering downstairs in a rush.
A thoroughly excited Ron dragged Harry to and from Grimmauld Place so that they could pick up their brooms. They had just made it to the paddock as teams were about to be picked.
“Nice of you to join us,” Charlie commented on their apparent delay as Harry and Ron fought to bring their breathing under control.
“As I was saying,” Bill continued, “Charlie and I will be captains so everyone stand in a line and we will select our players one by one.”
Once they had lined up Charlie inclined his head towards Bill and cordially said, “Tomorrow the noose, today the goose.”
Harry was completely befuddled by the phrase Charlie used and looked to Ron for clarification.
“Go,” Ron whispered from the corner of his mouth.
“What?” Harry asked certain that he had not heard correctly.
“Go!” Ron told him more insistently with a slight push.
Charlie’s laughter got his attention before he could argue with Ron.
“Harry you’re the goose,” Charlie informed him.
At the blank look on his face Charlie elaborated, “You know, the goose that laid the golden egg; the prized player!”
Harry walked with a slight swagger to join Bill’s team. He felt oddly proud that the two eldest Weasley’s thought of him as the best player. Once he reached his position behind Bill it occurred to him to ask what the noose was.
“That’s what Charlie calls marrying Fleur,” Bill confided, “He thinks I’m hanging myself.”
The smile that Bill wore suggested that he did not agree with Charlie’s synopsis of the situation.
“Actually,” Charlie announced, “its poor Fleur I’m worried about!”
Several minutes passed as Bill and Charlie good-humoredly wheedled one another until Ginny gave a sharp warning cough to remind them that they were supposed to be selecting teams.
“Well now you’ve got your seeker and I’ll be seeker for my team,” Charlie told Bill, “So I’ll take Ginny as a chaser.”
“I’ve heard good things about you Ginger bread man, don’t let me down!” Charlie warned Ginny.
Ginny turned to check out the competition, “We’ve got this one in the bag choo choo train!” she told Charlie flipping her hair at Bill and Harry who looked incredulously at each other in amusement.
The good natured ribbing continued as Charlie selected Ron for his keeper, Fred for his beater, and Gabrielle for his second chaser.
Bill in turn selected George as his beater and Percy, whose wife had forced him to partake in the “family activity”, as his second chaser. He managed to convince Hermione to play as his keeper thanks to the sneering retorts Ron made about her sheer lack of talent in any thing not book related.
Penelope conjured a chair to sit upon to watch the game while Tonks opted to be the referee. Fred and George brought a product that they wanted to test out, a long range hologram, and managed to block off the muggles view of the Burrow. This meant that they could fly rather high without fear of being spotted.
“What’s with all the weird nicknames?” Harry asked Ginny as they took flight.
“Charlie nicknames everything and everyone according to silly childhood rhymes or stories,” she winked conspiratorially at him, “Ron’s is the little piggy that went whee whee all the way home!”
“So naturally he must be…”
“Whee whee!” Ginny completed his thought nodding in affirmation.
Harry smiled at the morsel of embarrassment that she had just handed to him on a silver platter and considered telling Hermione so she could badger Ron about it.