Ron sighed from somewhere under his bed. “Who would have thought I’d ever have to use my Charms book? And in the middle of summer holidays even…!” It had been two hours since he had come back from Hogsmeade, and Ron had been scouring his room for his Charms book for one hundred and fifty-six minutes of that time. The other four minutes he had spent with his head in the fridge.
“Socks… knickers…Oy! There’s my Prefect badge…. Urgh! I don’t even want to know what that is…” he moaned, wiping whatever it was on his hand onto his robes.
“It looks like an old corned beef sandwich, if you ask me.”
Ron jumped, slamming his head on his bed. “Bloody hell…Hermione?”
“Oh, Ron. I didn’t mean to scare you. Come out from under there, before that sandwich turns on you,” she said, reaching under the bed to grab his hand.
Ron crawled out from under his bed with Hermione’s help. “Thanks….”
“What were you looking for, anyway?” Hermione asked, grinning. “You have a bit of dirt on your nose. Did you know? Just there…”she said, wiping some imaginary dirt from her own nose.
Ron laughed. He was about to rub his nose when he noticed something that caused his to stomach flip and a grin to curl on his lips. “Right. Erm…Hermione?”
“Yes?”
“I need my hand back.”
“Hmm? Oh. Right, sorry…” As a rather noticeable blush rose in Hermione’s cheeks, she quickly released Ron’s hand. “So, what was it you were braving the unknown territories under your bed to look for, again?”
Ron scrubbed the dirt off his nose and shrugged. “My Charms book…”
“Really? There’s a surprise.” Hermione said, raising an eyebrow. “Did you look in your trunk?”
“No…” Ron jumped from his spot on the ground and pulled his trunk out from under his bed. After a few seconds of fiddling with the lock, he lifted the lid and was met with the stench of old, musty clothes. “Mum isn’t going to be happy about those…” he muttered, throwing a pair of moldy trousers across the room.
“No, no I don’t think she will…” Hermione said tentatively, eyeing the pants closely and edging away from them as casually as she possibly could.
“It’s not in here, either!” he sighed, pulling his head out of the trunk. Ron wiped his nose on his sleeve and moved to his dresser, pulling out robes and an assortment of other odds and ends. “So, how was your da--”
“It wasn’t a date!” Hermione hissed.
“Day! I was saying day. Give me some credit, here!” he shouted indignantly, waving a pair of Chuddley Cannon boxers in his hands--which he promptly dropped back into an open drawer. “How was your day with Vic…Viktor?” Even as he said the name, that hot something began to burn the lining of his stomach.
“Fine. He told me he met you outside of the Three Broomsticks,” Hermione said, leaning indifferently against the wall.
Ron stiffened, and turned slowly to face Hermione. “R-really?”
“Viktor said you’ve really matured since he last met you,” she said simply, smiling.
“Hmm. Imagine that…” Ron replied, turning so that Hermione couldn’t see the ‘yeah-right’ grin on his on face.
Hermione nodded. “And judging from what he told me, I think I have to agree.”
Ron turned to look at Hermione, his eyebrows raised. “What did he tell you?”
“There really wasn’t much to tell… Viktor said that you were considerably more amiable, a bit easier to talk to,” Hermione continued, a hint of hesitancy in her tone. “He said he felt a little guilty, because he realized that some of the things he said may have come out wrong….I think he said ‘in a way in which I probably would have been promptly stricken by the lad a few years ago’….”
Ron snorted. The bugger has Hermione wrapped around his thick, hairy finger, doesn’t he? What a bunch of rubbish; the bloke wouldn’t feel guilty if he stuck Dobby in a meat grinder.
Hermione stepped away from the wall to examine the frog on Ron’s windowsill. “But he was really impressed at how you took it, and he told me how you wished us a good time as well; which really impressed me.” Hermione added, looking over her shoulder to grin at Ron. “Thank you for not acting like a complete prat.”
Ron scratched the back of his head awkwardly and turned to open the door to his closet. “I told you I wouldn’t.” He crawled inside and began to half-heartedly search for his Charms book. “You should really learn to trust me.”
“I do trust you, its just….” Hermione brushed a strand of loose hair away from her face.
Ron threw a pair of shoes out of his way. “I mean, like Krum said, I’ve matured since fourth year.”
“Yes, I know…”
“I’m not the conceited, pig-headed, jealous twit I was two years ago when you went out with him, Hermione. Give me some credit…”
“You know, that’s just like you! I try to give you a compliment, and you throw it right back in my” what did you say?” She paused in her scolding and her narrowed eyes softened.
Ron froze, his head going cold. Jealous. I said jealous. You dolt, you said jealous! “I said, uh…er…I said I’m not the…I’m not the conceited, pig-headed twit I was two years ago...?”
Hermione advanced towards him, her tone stern. “ I could have sworn you said something else, Ronald. If it’s worth saying once, its worth saying twice!” she added as he continued to hesitate.
Ron could feel his ears going red, and his nose was following close behind them. As he searched frantically for words other than those he most wanted to say, resisting the urge to slam his head against the floor, Hermione seemed to come to some kind of resolve.
“Never mind. I don’t have the energy …” Hermione said, her tone was a little strained and her expression solemnly thoughtful. “Haven’t you found it yet?”
Ron stood, relieved that Hermione had allowed a change of subject. “No…”
“Would you like to borrow mine?” she replied. Without waiting for an answer, she started towards the open door, stopping only to gesture for Ron to follow her.
“How do you two keep this place so clean?” Ron asked, stepping into Ginny and Hermione’s room. “I mean, there’s no clothes on either one of your beds…. Which are made, pointlessly I might add, as your only going to mess them up in a few hours anyway. And…you can see the floor! This is just unhealthy.” Ron shook his head in bemused amazement.
“That’s how a room is suppose to look, Ron,” Hermione replied with a smirk, opening the drawer to the end table next to her bed.
“Are you saying my room is a mess?” Ron challenged, looking at the disgustingly bare walls.
Hermione pulled a thick leather bound book out of the drawer and handed to him. “Well…yes.”
Ron accepted the book gratefully. “Right, then. Just checking. Thanks for this, by the way.” He added, gesturing with the textbook.
“Sure. Why were you looking for your Charms book anyway? Come to think of it, why were you looking for a book at all? I’m sure it’s not for a bit of light reading before bed.”
Ron shrugged, thumbing through the pages carefully. “I just wanted to check on something.”
“What?” Hermione asked, looking over his shoulder.
“Dissevering charms…”
“Dissevering charms? Chapter eight, page… two-hundred and seventeen, lesson three.” Hermione reached over his shoulder and turned to the proper page. “There.”
“How do you do that?” he asked, reading the heading of page two hundred and seventeen.
“It’s wicked, isn’t it?” Ginny asked, striding into the room. “Watch this; Hermione, how about Incessant Combustion charms?”
Hermione mumbled something under her breath, her cheeks turning pink.
“Pardon?” Ginny giggled, leaning closer to her friend. “What was that?”
“Nothing…”
“Oh, come on, Hermione! Please?”
“Do I have a choice?” Hermione asked, exasperated.
“No. Not really…” Ginny replied, winking at Ron.
“Chapters twelve and thirteen, pages three hundred and twelve through three hundred and thirty nine….” Hermione sighed, looking at her shoes.
“Brilliant! She’s right!” Ron exclaimed, checking the pages. “There has to be at least twenty separate charms on fire between the chapters.”
“Twenty-three, actually,” Hermione said with a smirk. “And a few to extinguish ever-lasting fires as well.”
“No wonder your Madame Pince’s sweet-heart, you’ve memorized the card catalog!” George said with a grin, leaning against the door.
“Let’s hope she uses her powers for good instead of evil, eh?” Fred added with a sarcastic smile.
Ginny threw her pillow at the twins. “What do you two want? I’ve already told you, I don’t have any shower caps.”
“Shower caps?” Hermione asked out of the corner of her mouth.
Ron shook his head. “Long story…”
“Mum told us to come and tell you supper was ready,” Fred replied.
Ginny shrugged and stood, following the twins out the door. “I hope we aren’t having that pickle thing she was talking about at breakfast….”
“Me, too…” Hermione said with a tone of revulsion.
Ron suddenly realized just how hungry he was. “I don’t care what we have, as long as it tastes okay. Shall we?” he bowed Hermione out of the door, catching the necklace as it fell from his robe pocket. He fumbled with the locket, trying to stuff it back into his robes before Hermione turned to see what all the fuss was about.
“What is that?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.
“What is what?” Ron replied, pulling his hands out of robes and holding them up in a questioning way.
“The thing you just put…never mind. After what I saw under your bed, I don’t think I really want to know.” Hermione sighed, pretending to cringe.
Ron pretended to laugh as he pulled several small candies from his robe pocket. “It was only a few sweets I ‘borrowed’ from mum’s stash,” he muttered innocently. He waited for Hermione to turn around, shaking her head in an amused sort of way, before sighing with relief. As he followed her out of the unhealthily clean room and down the stairs into the kitchen, Ron was careful to button the inside pocket of his robes.
“Shouldn’t dad be home by now?” Ginny asked, checking the grandfather clock.
Mrs. Weasley sighed. “No, dear. Did I forget to tell you? He’s not coming home until fairly late this evening…”
Ron took a rather large bite of his slab of meatloaf, which was mercifully pickle free. “What happened?”
“Just some problems with the Minister,” she replied woefully. “It seems he’s having a bit of trouble handling things at the office, particularly things dealing with the muggle Prime Minister, and the Daily Prophet….”
Nobody seemed keen to answer the red-eyed woman, or to ask another question. They had learned early enough that to bring up the subject of the Minister, as they now referred to Percy, would bear an equivalent result to that of someone approaching a Hippogriff without proper mannerisms, or slipping a banshee a particularly strong Weeping Wafer.
Fred looked up from his plate to find tears welling in his mother’s eyes. “Great meatloaf, mum. It’s really, er…”
“Meaty! And…juicy. Your best yet!” George exclaimed, bits of the meat spraying from his mouth.
Ginny smiled and took a heaping forkful herself. “And let’s not forget pickle free!”
Mrs. Weasley shook her head, laughing lightly. “I only make the same thing every Saturday, why should this meatloaf be any different? George, wipe your mouth. That’s disgusting”where is your napkin?”
George wiped his chin on the sleeve of his robes, earning himself a visit from the demonic wooden spoon his mother liked so much. With a flick of his wand, he charmed everyone’s spoons to orbit their heads in a very annoying fashion, Ginny’s spoon scooping gravy into her hair every other rotation.
“Wonderful. I’ll have to take a shower now. Thanks ever so much, George.”
“You’re very welcome, little sister! But a shower will do you good, since you dropped that box of dungbombs this morning. Now, mum; get this bugger off of me or you’ll be next!” George demanded, flinching as the wooden spoon dive-bombed his head.
“Fine, fine!” Mrs. Weasley croaked as her spoon quivered dangerously close to the gravy boat, and relieved her son of the mercenary utensil.
Ron rounded on his mother, his eyebrows raised. “Speaking of shower. Mum, this morning you told me that you were attacked by one of Fred and George’s shower caps.”
“Mmhm.” The woman stood and took her dish over to the sink, turning her back on the table.
“See, but we don’t make any shower caps, mum!” Fred said, levitating the plate out of his mother’s reach.
Mrs. Weasley sighed, not even bothering to reach for the platter hovering above her head. “Really, now? Hm. It must be your father’s, then. You know how he likes to, er, ‘confiscate’ things and take them home to study them.”
Hermione furrowed her brow, but nodded all the same. “That makes sense…I think.”
George nodded. “I think so, too. Very well, mum. On behalf of those at the dinner table, namely the ones with freckles, I apologize for the interrogation. Court is adjourned,” he banged his fork on the table. “Fred, lower the plate.”
Fred allowed the dish to drop safely into his mother’s outstretched hands. She nodded in an ‘its quite all right’ sort of fashion, and enchanted the sponge in the sink to get to work. “Did you have a good time with your friend, Hermione? Viktor, was it?” she asked in a tone that suggested she was eager to change the subject.
Ron rolled his eyes as the twins cast each other significant looks. Hermione, apparently oblivious, nodded and took a sip of her juice. “Yes, and yes.”
“Well, go on, then! Fill us in!” Ginny squealed, the twins following suit. “What did you two do?”
Her cheeks turned pink, and Ron considered sticking up for her, but Hermione shrugged. “Nothing, really. We met at the Three Broomsticks, had a few drinks while we talked, and walked around Hogsmeade for a couple hours. Viktor was swarmed by a bunch of people at the Quidditch Supply store--”
Ron snorted. “Dean and Seamus in the lead?”
“Naturally! So, we had to duck out the back way. That’s when we went to the twins’ shop. After that, we headed for Diagon Alley so Viktor could browse Madame Malkins' shop; he had sent her an owl for a new set of Quidditch robes, and he wanted to see if they were in yet." Hermione reached for her glass, but suddenly looked quite thoughtful and pulled her hand away. "Oh, that reminds me! We saw you there, Mrs. Weasley. At Madame Malkins, I mean.”
The dish and sponge fell into the sink just as the facet turned itself on. “Really? Imagine that. I’m afraid I didn’t see either of you, or else I would have…said hello….” Molly said lightly.
“I didn’t think you did…. But, may I ask you a question?” The tone of Hermione’s voice made Ron sit straighter in his chair, and look to his mother expectantly.
Mrs. Weasley shook her head and wiped her hands on dishtowel, eyeing Hermione wearily. “Maybe later, dear. I’m going to go check the clothesline.” She smiled kindly at Hermione before striding briskly out the back door.
Hermione stared after Mrs. Weasley, looking puzzled. “Hmm…”
“What?” Ron asked, biting into his roll.
“Its just… why would your mother be at Madame Malkin’s? She’s already done your clothes shopping for the year, hasn’t she?” It wasn’t really a question, which was made clear by the way she motioned her hand towards Ron’s new robes.
George shrugged. “She’s probably getting some for herself”she’s put on a few extra pounds in the past few months. Stress, I think.” Ginny nodded reluctantly, but made it obvious she didn’t quite approve of her brother’s choice of words when her hand met the back of his head.
Hermione dismissed Ron’s inquisitive look with a wave of her hand. “It’s nothing, really. Never mind…”
Fred elbowed Hermione in the ribs playfully as he asked, “So. How did you’re friend like our shop?”
“Oh. He actually really liked it,” Hermione said, rounding on the twins and staring at them coldly over her cup. “Even after you slipped him a Puking Pastille. Can you believe that, Ron?” she asked, twisting her head to look expectantly at him.
Ron hesitated, remembering that Hermione did not know about his visit to the twin’s shop. He decided to keep it that way. “No…? They didn’t!” He, too, rounded on the twins and furrowed his brow. “I cannot believe you two! Mucking around with Hermione’s friend like that…”
At first Fred and George were thoroughly confused, but then they saw their little brother struggling with the smile threatening to overcome his scowl. Fred even had the courtesy to look mildly ashamed. “We’d like to say that we regret our decision greatly….”
“But, as you very well know, such a statement would drown us in guilt of having lied to those dearest to us!” George finished, and the twins dissolved into laughter.
Ron snorted in appreciation of the joke, even after he caught the disapproving twinkle in Hermione’s eye. He cleared his throat and, with a final smirk towards his brothers, changed the subject. “Is that all you two did? Walk around, drink, and puke?”
Hermione cringed at Ron’s choice of words. “No, but like I said, there really isn’t much to tell. We might have gotten an early supper, but Viktor had to leave because his arm was hurting him; a Bludger shattered his elbow about a year ago, but the Healer who tried to mend him was an apprentice.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” asked Ginny, taking a sip of her water.
“He sneezed in the middle of the incantation,” Hermione said, causing everyone at the table to wince. “His arm has been bothering him from time to time ever since.”
“Why doesn’t he just get someone else to fix what the bugger messed up?” Fred asked through a mouthful of meatloaf.
Hermione shrugged. “I asked him the same thing. Viktor said it was complicated. He’s lucky its his left arm, though, because he’s right handed; and you can imagine what a faulty elbow could do to you in a Quidditch match.”
Ron made a mental note of Krum’s accident, for future reference. “I thought Quidditch was one of the things you didn’t understand?”
“The point of,” Hermione corrected him, wiggling her index finger. “I understand the strategy and concept quite well.”
“Oh. My mistake….” Ron scoffed.
Fred helped himself to some more meatloaf. “Somebody pass the catsup?”
Ron reached for the catsup, placing his hand on top of Hermione’s just as she grabbed the bottle. For some reason, a dumb grin formed on Ron’s freckled face, interrupted by a cold horror that seized him when the twins began to howl with laughter (“Look at their faces!” “This is too much!”). As his ears began to burn, Ron released the jar, and the catsup smashed upon the table, sending red sauce everywhere. “Bloody hell…” he hissed under his breath, thankful for the catsup on his face that hid his blush. He hastily handed Hermione his napkin, casting the twins a reprimanding glance. Maybe the whole thing wouldn’t have been such an embarrassment if he hadn’t seen the unreadable look Hermione’s face that might have been disgust.
It was too bad Ron was ‘too overly- git-like to infer the emotions of the opposite sex’, and therefore unable to realize that Hermione was just as embarrassed about the slip up in front of everybody as he was”and equally thankful for the catsup on her face.
The grandfather clock began to chime, and Mr.Weasley’s hand started to spin towards ‘Home’. When Ron looked away from the clock, he found everyone else staring at it, the looks on their faces making Ginny’s next statement pointless. “We should probably clean up before dad gets here. We’ll probably just get kicked out anyway….” Just as the group stood, Mrs. Weasley came running through the backdoor.
“I’ll take care of it. Move along, children. Shoo, shoo.” She herded them out of the kitchen and into the living room without a single inquiry about the catsup soaking two of her charges. Ron shivered at the look his mother had given him before she closed the door, and moved to the head of the pack to get farther away from the kitchen.
“Kicked out of our own kitchen…” Fred muttered to his twin. “Its like we’re strangers in our own house.”
"You're definately the strangest in the house," Ginny muttered, though neither Twin showed signs of having heard her.
“Maybe we should try and listen in, I’ve still got some Extendable Ears under my bed…” George replied.
Hermione raised her eyebrows, creating more of a comical expression than that of warning. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“Neither do I…!” Ron said, remembering the night before.
“Really?” Hermione said, smiling. “It’s a good thing you found your Prefect’s Badge, then. You’re starting living up to it.”
“Yeah, Ron. You’re a regular Head Boy!” Fred scoffed, batting his eyelashes.
Ron pushed his older brother in the chest. “Gerroff, mate.”
Fred smirked. “Huffy! Great, now I’ve got catsup on my shirt. C’mon, George. Let’s go…”
“To find the Extendable Ears?” Ron asked tentatively.
“No. To celebrate my liberation from B.O.G.I.E.S,” George said proudly.
Ron smiled. ”Really, now?”
Ginny nodded, and elbowed her brother in the ribs. “Katie came by the shop this afternoon, and George took the rest of the afternoon off. I thought it was a bit nauseating to watch the process, but who am I to talk?”
Hermione laughed. “I was wondering how you got your pin off, George. I assumed that you had turned it off for work….”
George shook his head, grinning. “Nope. I wore it all day. I was not about to disgrace the name if B.O.G.I.E.S! ”besides, you can’t turn them off, I’ve tried”anyway, as soon as I asked Katie if she’d like a butter beer, it fell right off….”
“It didn’t fall off. It imploded,” Fred corrected in a matter-of-fact voice.
“Either way, I’m pin free!” George exclaimed, puffing out his chest.
“Well, I guess that means I’m the only member of bogies left…” Ron stared at his shoes. When he had hinted to Katie about George, he hadn’t realized it would mean his brother wouldn’t be a member of B.O.G.I.E.S anymore. The thought was more than a bit depressing.
“Not necessarily,” Ginny said as the twins made their way up the stairs, singing an Irish drinking song.
“What do you mean?”
Hermione wiped a bit of catsup off her nose. “The twins started selling the pins at their shop--didn’t they tell you? When Viktor and I stopped in, a surprising amount of people were gathered around the display. He thought it was fairly amusing.”
Ginny nodded, her eyes twinkling. “They even came out with a version of the pin for girls.”
“What?” Ron furrowed his brow in a comical way. “Broads too Overly Git-like to Infer the Emotions of the opposite Sex?” he asked jokingly.
“Well…yeah,” Ginny said frankly. “They’re really popular. I have no idea why…”
Ron shook his head as rather broad grin crept across his face. “Those two could sell piles of Hippogriff dung if they carved farm animals out of it and dyed them neon pink,” he said with amused disgust. Ron suddenly felt the over whelming urge to yawn widely. “I think I better turn in.”
“Its only eight!” Ginny said in an incredulous tone.
Ron shrugged lazily, picking the Charms book up off the sofa. “I’ve had a long day.”
“So has Hermione, but you don’t see her turning in before the birds!”
“Actually,” Hermione tried to conceal a yawn behind her catsup stained hand.
Ron smiled and turned to his little sister. “You were saying?”
“Hmph. You two are just like an old married couple, the way you fight non-stop, and then agree at the most peculiar of times…” Ginny huffed, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes.
“Hey!” shouted Ron and Hermione in unison.
Ginny smiled fiendishly. “See?”
“We are not old!” Ron said indignantly. He cut across his sister just as she opened her mouth to respond. “Nor are we married.”
Ginny laughed, her eyes widening as if to say ‘nice save’. She watched Ron yawn again, catsup dripping from his chin. Pushing her brother in the small of his back, she said, “Go on up stairs, old man. Get some beauty sleep”Merlin knows you need it.”
“Ha, ha.” Ron called as he trudged up the stairs, pondering the red color that had risen in Hermione’s cheeks at his sister’s 'old married couple' joke.