“And that’s…” Ron watched as his queen gracefully made her way across the chessboard to demolish Hermione’s knight. A smile twitched in the corners of his mouth as she lifted her chair and smashed the white horse on the head, “a Checkmate.”
Hermione shook her head in defeat as her mangled chess pieces repaired themselves. Ron began to set the chessboard for the fourth time that afternoon, giving a pep talk to his pieces.
“Ron!” Hermione whined, laughing. “Why must you insist on playing this game nonstop? You know I can’t play it for the life of me”ask Ginny or someone who’d be challenging to play. I won’t mind watching,” she assured him.
“Because, ”said Ron simply, grinning, “I like to win. And when I play against you, it’s a given!” The truth was he liked spending the time with her alone, but there was no way he was about to say that.
“Well, you can’t blame me for not wanting to smash your pieces to bits. This game is utterly barbaric!”
Ron rolled his eyes. “The pieces repair themselves, Hermione. Think of their mindset”its similar to house elves; they like to do what they were born to do!” That comment earned him a steely look from the brown haired girl sitting across from him. “They want to get smashed to bits. Don’t you, guys?” One of Hermione’s knights, looking the worse for wear, looked up at Ron, or would have if his body were a bit more flexible.
“Sure. Although its nice to obliterate the other guys once in a while,” he growled sarcastically.
Hermione was taken aback. “Well, maybe you could obliterate the other guys if you pieces would stop yelling at me to make one move, and then boo and tell me I should have done another!” she growled, crossing her arms. “I’m not going to get into a row with a little piece of wood. This game will just have to go on the list of things I do not understand the point of. Right next to Quidditch.”
“I’ll ignore that, since I know youwouldn’t remember my spectacular game last season, because you were busy babysitting Hagrid’s little brother…”
“Hagrid has a little brother?” Fred asked, plopping down on the sofa.
“Yeah, you remember him, don’t you, Fred?” George asked, sitting on the floor.
Fred thought for a moment, and then revelation dawned on his face. “Oh! Yeah, I remember now…” A grin formed on his lips and he turned to face Ron and Hermione, snorting at their perplexed expressions. “When we ditched school, we flew over the Forbidden Forest for a final goodbye, see?”
“And while we were circling, this one tree caught our eye. It was swishing side to side as if someone had pulled on it. Like…this.” George stood and went over to a particularly sickly looking, stalk-like plant. He pulled the tip of it back so that it bent in an arch towards him and let go, watching as it wavered back and forth like a spring. Hermione and Ron shared grins as the twins described to them something they knew all too well.
“And when we looked a little bit closer,” continued Fred, “the ugly little bugger”well, I guess he wasn’t exactly little--he tried to grab our brooms, screaming ‘HAGGER!’”
Hermione smiled, uncrossing her arms. “So you two knew about Grawp? Why haven’t you said anything?”
George shrugged, returning to his spot on the floor. “We didn’t know anyone else knew. And we didn’t want to get Hagrid in a spot. I mean, we figured it had something to do with the Order…”
“But, you know Hagrid. His reasons for doing things are as complex and unpredictable as…as…”
“Girls…” Ron murmured before he could stop himself, turning red as soon as he realized what he said,
Fred and George smiled knowingly at their brother as Hermione shot him a derogatory look. “Very funny. I would hardly call not understanding Wizard’s chess complicated.”
George stood and poked Hermione in the shoulder. “He’s right, you know. In all my years on the Quidditch team, I never got Katie to go out to Hogsmeade with me…”
“Or Angelina,” Fred added with a smirk. “Or that Ravenclaw Seeker, Cho Chang…Or the Ravenclaw Keeper, or that one Hufflepuff Beater, or the”“
George’s ears turned a little red. “Alright already! But you didn’t have any luck with that Hufflepuff broad either.”
“No. But at least I got a date with Angelina!”
“The Yule Ball doesn’t count!”
“Who said it was at the Yule Ball?” Fred said in a whimsical tone.
George strode over to Ron and put an arm around his shoulders. “Hmm. What do you say you and me form a club, little brother? We can call it…. ”
“Blokes too Overly Git-like to Infer the Emotions of the opposite Sex?” Fred offered with a smile.
Hermione thought for a moment. “B.O.G.I.E.S? Bogies? That’s a bit… eccentric, don’t you think?”
“Yeah!” Ron and George said together, dissolving into a fit of laughter.
Fred poked his younger brother. “We can make it some sort of support group! You know, like the one some of the nutters formed after Lockhart was shut up in Mungo’s?”
George turned to Hermione, his eyes twinkling. “It was wicked. Some of the meetings were aired on Wizards’ Wireless network. We all got a laugh. Except for mum…”
Ron stood and made a mock solemnly serious face. Clearing his throat and wringing his hands, he looked at the living room in general, as though it was full of fellow B.O.G.I.E.S members. “Hello. My name is Ronald Billius Weasley and I have been a member of Blokes too Overly Git-like to Infer the Emotions of the opposite Sex for twenty seven and a half seconds.”
“Hi Ron,” The twins chorused morosely, Hermione watching with an expression of mingled disgust and amusement.
“Ronald Weasley!” Ginny said in a game show host-ish voice, holding up a hairbrush to her brother’s mouth. She had been watching from the kitchen doorway for quite a while and had finally joined the group. “Tell your fellow Bogiesmembers how long you have been in need of such a support group.”
Ron was trying, unsuccessfully, to keep a straight face as he took the hairbrush. “Two years…”
Ginny cocked her head to one side, grinning. “And just whose emotions have you failed to infer because you are ‘too overly git-like’?”
As Ron’s ears began to turn pink, George pushed him out of the way and said his introduction. As he went on woefully about all of his failings, shedding convincing tears and sobbing uncontrollably, Fred jumped up from his seat on the couch, slapping his brother on the shoulder. “You know what a group like this needs?”
George, cured of his sorrows, thought for a moment. “You don’t mean--”
“Indeed I do, dear brother!”
“Let’s get to it, then!” George shouted, bouncing with excitement. Two loud banging noises took the place of the Weasley twins as they Apparated to their room on floor above.
Ron turned to face his little sister. “What was all that about?”
“Probably another ‘Wheezes’ product they’re going to test on us…” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Alright. As long as it doesn’t catch fire or do anything like that…” he muttered, ignoring his sister’s giggles. Turning to Hermione, he asked her what she wanted to do now.
“Anything, really. Its been a pretty slow day, don’t you think?” Hermione replied with a smile. “Besides the spontaneous formation of a Bogies union, I mean.”
“If you three are so bored, you can go and de-gnome the garden, if you wish.” Mrs. Weasley offered, peeking her head out from behind the kitchen door.
Ron shook his head. “Tempting, mum. But…I’m sure we can find something else to do…”
“Let me put it this way,” Mrs. Weasley said in a stronger tone. “Go de-gnome the garden.” When Ron hesitated, she flicked her wand and a wooden spoon flew out of the kitchen door and hovered just above his head, twitching in a threatening way.
“Okay! Okay! Don’t shoot, we’re going…” he said, ducking his head as the spoon made a swipe at him. Ron motioned for the girls to follow him, and proceeded to the back door. He sidestepped out the door and into the garden, squinting in the bright afternoon light.
“At least its pleasant weather, hm?” Hermione said, brushing her hands against the trunk of a rather ghastly tree as she followed the towering branches with her eyes. “I wonder how tall this tree is…?”
Ron smiled and sat down in the dirt. “Don’t know its exact height, but it goes to just above my room in the attic.”
“Gnomes!” his mum shouted from the kitchen window, the wooden spoon dancing just above her head.
“We’re getting to it, don’t get your knickers in a twist!” Ron shouted to her, mumbling under his breath about how moody she has been lately. Absentmindedly grabbing a gnome, he turned to Hermione, the little bugger squealing and kicking. “You do know how to de-gnome, right?” he asked.
Hermione nodded. “Well, I’ve read about the techniques. Some of them are positively horrific. But the way we can do it here…some simple geometry should be the most work we’ll ha--”
“Slow down. De-gnoming is a simple process, Hermione. We do not need any jeomitree or however you say it. All you need to do," Ron walked over to the low stone wall surrounding the garden, “is hold onto them tight, ” he held out his arms to Hermione, showing her the grip he had on the gnome, “and spin…spin…spin…” Ron twirled on the spot several times, rocking back and forth like a broken sneak-o-scope. After several seconds of spinning manically, his grip on the gnome’s legs loosened and the pest flew from his hands and over the wall, landing a few yards on the other side. Ron fell to the ground in a heap, laughing as several Ginnys and Hermiones spun around him. “Then let them go! Got it…?”
Smiling, Hermione pulled Ron to his feet. “I think I see how it’s done. So I…” She strode over to a bush and plunged her arm into its branches, pulling it out seconds later with a gnome dangling from her grasp. “Hold it tight, right?”
“No. Well, yes. But not like that. Both hands, Hermione.” Ron corrected her.
Hermione placed both of her hands around the gnome’s waist. “Better?”
“A little. Here.” Ron moved behind her and placed his hands on top of hers. He lifted her left hand and placed it on the gnome’s leg, squeezing her hand so that it closed around the kicking limb. “What’s so funny?” he asked Ginny after repeating the process with Hermione’s right hand.
“Nothing. Nothing,” Ginny assured, hiding her giggles unsuccessfully behind her hand.
“Right. Well…” he lifted his hands from Hermione’s and stepped back towards his sister. “Now, you are ready to compete in the noble sport of GNOME CHUCKING!”
With a sigh Hermione walked over to the low wall and began to spin. Ron watched as her bushy hair turned into one large mass of brown swirling in the wind. He felt something jab him in the ribs and looked down to see his sister smiling at him. “What?” he hissed, keeping an eye on Hermione’s slowly spinning frame.
“You made Hermione blush, you know,” she said with a smile
Ron shook his head. “And? You know how Hermione gets when she doesn’t understand something the first time around.”
His sister shrugged. “A hopeless case. Truly a hopeless case…”
Ron furrowed his brow at his sister’s words; he was starting to get the sense that a couple of people in the house knew something he did not. He snapped out of his thoughtful daze as the telltale squeal of a flying gnome reached his ears, closely followed by a thump that meant Hermione had fallen. Blinking, Ron extended his hand to pull her up. “You know, falling isn’t necessary in the art of gnome chucking.”
“Really?” Hermione replied, brushing off her robes. “So I don’t get any bonus points?”
“No, afraid not. Those can only be found on a Charms exam.” He leaned forwards against the stone wall, scanning the plane before him. “Where’d the little bugger go, anyway?”
Ginny laughed and pointed at the tree Hermione had inquired about earlier. “There he is. See those two little legs kicking, just above your window, Ron?”
“Oh yeah!” he said, dissolving into laughter. “Well, Hermione, you get negative forty-seven points for distance, but I’ll give you fifty for height.”
Hermione shrugged. “I could have done better if you had let me use geometry.”
“I suppose jemtree is something you learn in a Muggle school, right?” Ron asked, butchering the word once more.
Hermione nodded. “Yes, but I find that some of the professors incorporate some simple geometry into their lessons, especially McGonagall. And Flitwick.”
Ginny smiled devilishly. “Ah, see. That’s the problem. Ron, how do you obtain the information from those classes?”
“He copies my notes…” Hermione answered for him, her smile suggesting she knew where Ginny was going with her query.
“My point exactly. Ron doesn’t pay attention, therefore he would not spot the geometry in the lessons, therefore he does not understand the word and its meaning or uses. But then, what else is new?”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” George shouted as Ron caught Ginny in a headlock.
“There are too many witnesses, mate. Kill her later; when no one’s watching.” The twins strode out of the back door, arm in arm and looking quite pleased with themselves.
“What’s in the bag?” Hermione asked, drawing Ron’s attention to the small drawstring bag strewn over George’s shoulder. He allowed himself a moment’s time to dwell on how blissfully observant Hermione was, and then another to wonder why on earth he had used the word blissfully and whether it might have anything to do with his little tin box upstairs, before actually listening to George’s explanation.
“They’re for Bogies.”
Ron furrowed his brow. “What? Oh. You mean…”
“Yup!” Fred exclaimed, holding up a pin the size of a flattened Galleon. George pinned one to his shirt, and then tossed one to Ron. The pin looked transparent, and felt fairly smooth. The acronym B.O.G.I.E.S glittered in the sunlight.
“Go on, pin it to your robes then!” George encouraged, smiling.
Ron did as he was told, pinning it to his chest. The pin immediately changed color to match his robes, and the letters began to glow, blinking frantically between the ‘Blokes too Overly Git-like to Infer the Emotions of the opposite Sex’ and ‘Bogies Rock’. “Wicked…”
“And that’s not all they do. Sure, they’ll change color to match what you’re wearing at the time, but they’re also equipped with ownership memory,” asserted Fred.
“Ownership memory?”
“I’ll show you!” George removed his pin, dropped it on the ground, and walked a few steps away. A couple seconds later, the pin shuddered and, with a tiny popping noise, appeared on George’s chest again. “See?”
Ron put his chin in his hands. “Great. So, I’ll be stuck wearing this stupid thing for the rest of my life? I wish you would have told me this before I pinned it on…”
“Well, you might be stuck with it all your life,” Fred said with a smile. “But they’re…well, I guess programmed is the correct word…They’re programmed only to come off when the owner is no longer eligible to be a member of Bogies!”
“Which means that once we are no longer Blokes that are too Overly Git-like to Infer the Emotions of the opposite Sex, these things’ll come off and stay off!”
Hermione bit her lower lip. “Fred…George. Do you know what you’ve just done?”
The twins looked at each other, and then back at Hermione. “No.”
“You two have created some sort of transposing pigmentation spell merged with a hybrid analysis protean charm!” she said breathlessly.
“Oh. Yeah…right. Sure.” Fred said, rolling his eyes. “We’ve been working on a modifiable version for the shop, and thought we’d tinker with making a few for B.O.G.I.E.S…”
George shrugged. “So, you guys want help de-gnoming?”
“Lemonade, kids?” Mrs. Weasley called from outside the backdoor about an hour later, a tray of drinks floating before her.
Taking a glass, Ginny looked at her mother seriously. “You can’t really call the twins ‘kids’ anymore. They’re business men, now. Inventors,” she said, poking the pin on Ron’s chest.
Ron snorted, lemonade spewing from his nose. “Business men? Hardly.”
“You have to admit Ron, they are becoming flourishing entrepreneurs,” Hermione said, passing him a napkin.
“Why thank you, young Hermione!” Fred exclaimed with a bow.
George dabbed his eyes with the collar of his robes. “Oh, stop. You’re making me blush…”
“I don’t doubt they’re entrepreneurs, Hermione.” Ron said, watching the twins blow bubbles in their drinks. “But Men?”
“Ah. I see,” Hermione said with a smile.
Ginny laughed and pointed to the lemonade dripping down his chin. “You shouldn’t be one to talk, Ron.”
With a shake of her head, Mrs. Weasley pulled a scroll out of her apron. “Hermione, dear. This came for you a minute ago.” She thrust the letter into Hermione’s outstretched hand. “There you go. Well, supper is in an hour, dears. Are you finished with the garden?”
“Yes,” Ron said as he placed his glass back on the tray, eyeing the letter that Hermione was tucking into her robes. The letter that was from Krum. The letter that had to be from Krum. The letter setting the date and time he would come and whisk Hermione away from the Burrow to some Bulgarian castle in the sky…
“Ahem…Ron? Ron!”
“Huh? What? What’s wrong?” he blubbered, looking to his mother and turning red because he had just realized that he had been staring at Hermione’s pocket.
Mrs. Weasley looked at her son nervously, and caught his eye as if to warn him about something or another. “Okay. Well, come on back in, then. Ginny, can you hel--” She was interrupted by the telltale noise of her husband apparating into the kitchen. The tray fell to the ground with the sound of shattering glass and she practically ran into the kitchen, pausing only to shut the door.
Fred repaired the glasses with a flick of his wand while George levitated them back onto the tray, and then the twins turned to head back into the kitchen. “Hey. It won’t open,” said Fred, jiggling the handle.
“Mum!” George shouted through the door. “It’s locked! Argh. Alohomora! ALO! HO! MORA!”
Ginny peered over George’s shoulder through the window in the door. “ Hmm. The door’s locked and dad’s home before supper. Guess that means we have to go around the front and stay out of their way…”
Hermione turned to Ron. “Your father’s home early; I hope it’s nothing serious…”
“Nah. I bet its just something about Percy,” he muttered, not really believing what he said. “Well, let’s go around, then…”
“You can, little brother. We’re taking the short way. George?”
“Sure, sure! Later, kiddies!” Two more popping noises and the twins disappeared into thin air, leaving Ginny, Ron, and Hermione to their own accords.
They tramped around to the front of the house, dodging chickens and straying far away from the flesh-eating slugs that had taken over a small portion of a wild mandrake patch. Upon Hermione’s questioning, the three decided that, at one point or another this summer, the odd buzzing noise coming from the old outhouse would have to be investigated. When they walked through the front door, Mr. And Mrs. Weasley were still conversing frantically in the kitchen.
“I think I’ll go and…um,” Hermione pulled the letter from her pocket, “read this…” She walked into the den and sat down on the old couch, unrolled the scroll, and disappeared behind the crinkled, off white parchment.
Ginny patted her brother on the shoulder for reasons unbeknownst to him, and ran up the stairs to her room to do who knows what. Ron followed her upstairs with his eyes, and was about to go and try to read Hermione’s letter when his mother’s voice began to rise.
“…strang? They’re only children, Arthur!”
“But”you have to understand, Molly!” His voice was shaking, whether from fear of whatever they were talking about, or fear of his wife, Ron didn’t know. “Their old Headmaster, Kark--”
Mrs. Wealsey’s voice had dropped, so Ron had crept to the edge of the door to hear his parents. “I understand perfectly well”But the children of Dur--”
“You need to calm down. It cannot be goo--”
“I don’t care!” Mrs. Weasley huffed, her face turning an odd shade between blue and green.
Mr.Weasley tried to take his wife’s hand. “You really must keep quiet, dear…They were being taught Dark Arts. It’s only expected that He-Who-Mu-”
“I refuse to believe that children from Durmstrang are being recruited to become Death Eaters, Arthur!”
“You’re bloody joking!” Ron gasped before he could stop himself, shooting up from his crouching position, only to slam his head on the doorknob and fall down again.
Mr.Weasley paused midway through his next sentence and turned to face the kitchen door. “What…? Molly, did you hear…?”
“No,” she said furiously. “But I saw something. Ronald!”
Still crouching behind the kitchen door, he turned the knob and crawled in, trying and failing to look innocent. “Yes, mum?”
“What were you doing outside the door?” she asked with the air that suggested she knew exactlywhat he had been doing.
Ron stood and willed his ears not to turn red. “I wasn’t outside the, erm…I lost my…I wasn’t listening!” A voice inside his head that sounded eerily like Hermione hissed, tactless!
Mr.Weasley lifted himself from his chair to tower over his son. “This is not the time for funny business! What you may or may not have heard is strictly confidential Order business, Ronald. If word gets out, chaos will ensue. You are not to repeat ANYTHING. Do you understand?”
“But, I--”
“Do you understand me? You are not to repeat anything. To anyone. Got it?”
“Yes, sir…”
“Word. Give me your word, Ronald.”
“W-word?”
“I have no clue how much you’ve heard, Ron. And I’m not about to risk revealing Order affairs. Give me your word that what you heard outside that door will never leave your lips. Promise me, Ron.”
“I, erm…I promise; not a…not a word!” Ron could not remember ever being so terrified of his father. He could not remember his father ever being so angry, or looking so furious; he had always been the soft parent, the one that would ask if your trip to Surrey in his flying car went well. It might have been more tolerable if his mother was yelling at him, rather than his father.
“Go,” he hissed, sitting back down in his chair and putting his head in his hands.
Ron nodded dumbly and stumbled out of the kitchen without looking back. The hem of his robes got caught in the door after his mother slammed it, but rather than risking another horrific row with his father, Ron ripped his robes free of the door and continued to the den at top speed.
Tears in her eyes now, Molly turned to face her exasperated husband. A thin frown formed on Mr. Weasley’s lips as his wife wrapped her arms around him. “Its times like this, Molly. Times when the boys complicate things so very much, that make me grateful to have a girl…” he mumbled into his wife’s shoulder as he watched a tray of empty glasses floating outside the backdoor.