A/N: Left you hanging there didn’t I? *evil laugh* I’m sorry, I just moved to a new really boring town and the only amusement I have is to cause my loyal readers and reviewers pain. It doesn’t mean I love you less, only that I’m really starved for entertainment Anyway, to find the source of the scream…read on.
“Harry!” Ron said as both boys jumped to their feet, “That’s mum!”
Ron was ashen faced as he and Harry bolted from the living room, wands drawn.
“Please don’t let her be hurt,” Harry thought over and over. She was like his mother. If anything had happened to her it was because of her relationship to Harry. It would be his fault.
Harry and Ron had almost reached the kitchen when Ginny came running through the doorway, face fixed into an expression of disgust.
“It’s alright, you two, you can put the wands away,” she spoke calmly, one hand on each boy’s chest, restraining them from barging into the kitchen, cursing everything in sight..
“Ginny, what’re you on about? We heard Mum screaming!” Ron shouted, trying to push past her.
Harry, convinced that there was no danger, put his wand away and smiled to himself as he witnessed Ginny successfully holding off her brother, who was at least a foot taller than she was.
“Ron underestimates his baby sister,” Harry thought to himself, “She’s strong. Maybe she’s strong enough to deal with-”
But Harry, in a maneuver that’s very hard to achieve, cut his own thoughts off with a responding argument,
“No! We are NOT getting back together. Get used to it, Potter, it’s the way it is.”
Realizing he was now having a conversation with himself, Harry drew his attention back to Ron, who was still trying to physically move Ginny, his wand outstretched. Harry thought that no matter how strong Ginny was, Ron’s height and weight advantages were sure to overtake her sheer willpower in a moment. He decided to intervene before blood was shed.
“What happened, Ginny?” Harry inquired.
“If this git would slow down and let me explain, I would be more than happy to tell you.”
“Ron, calm down. Your mum’s obviously not in any danger, so let’s just hear what happened.”
Ron reluctantly stopped pushing Ginny and put his wand into his robes
“Thank you. Do you really think I’d stop you going in there if our mother was hurt, Ron? Honestly you have to be the thickest-”
“Ginny,” Harry said firmly, “What happened?”
“Phlegm’s back.” Ginny stated simply.
Harry nodded as if that explained it all.
“Oh, right, what’s she done this time?” Harry asked.
“Why is it that it’s always Fleur that’s done something? It’s always her fault isn’t it? For once, you guys could cut her a break,” Ron said hotly.
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot!” Ginny remarked snidely, “Ron fancies himself in love with our dear Phlegm. Isn’t that right, Ron?”
“I do not. I just think you lot could cut her some slack, that’s all.”
Harry gave Ron a stare that clearly said, “Stop talking about Fleur.”
Ron quieted and Ginny addressed Harry, “You’d better come and see then.”
They followed Ginny into the kitchen. Harry expected to see something horrid, a roomful of disgusting wedding decorations, or a large banner that said, “Bill and I are moving in here. Permanently!” Harry smiled thinking of Mrs. Weasley’s reaction to this news, but the horrible things he imagined disappeared as he saw Mrs. Weasley sitting, looking faint, in a chair across from Fleur. Mrs. Weasley’s eyes were closed so she did not notice the glares Fleur was throwing her as she looked back and forth between Mrs. Weasley and Hermione, who Harry had just noticed, standing next to the sink holding a roll of parchment so long that the end that was resting on the kitchen floor was rolled several times to indicate even more parchment than Hermione held down the length of her body. A small broom and dustpan were moving of their own accord, sweeping up the remainders of what appeared to be a large salad bowl. That explained the crash.
“Fleur,” Hermione was saying tentatively, “Are you sure you need all of these guests? I mean, Mrs. Weasley has a point. It’s a bit long.”
Harry realized now that Fleur had brought the list of wedding guests for Mrs. Weasley’s perusal. Ron was standing next to Harry, his mouth open in clear astonishment.
“Blimey,” he croaked, “I don’t even think I know that many people.”
Fleur ignored Ron and glared at Hermione as she had been glaring at Mrs. Weasley, who was now being tended by Ginny, and said,
“Of course I need all of ze guests, Her-my-oh-neee! They are all my very close friends, and they would be very insulted if zey were not invited.”
“Alright,” said Hermione, her tone all business, “Here’s what we’ll do. You and I will go through the list together and decide who can be cut.”
“I weel not! None of zese people will be left out of my special day!”
“Fleur, be reasonable. All of these people will not fit in the back yard.”
“We weel find a way!”
“If you don’t want to edit this list yourself, Fleur, I’m sure Fred and George could supply some lovely party favors to give to ‘your closest friends’. In fact, I believe they would supply them even without your knowledge, ” Hermione said lightly, as if she had just told Fleur that she was considering wearing blue to the wedding, and was awaiting Fleur’s opinion on the matter.
As if on cue, the group heard a door open upstairs and Fred’s voice called down,
“Did mum kill Fleur yet?”
“Yeah, we were busy. Did we miss anything good?” George’s voice echoed through the house.
“No. Hermione’s taking care of it,” Ron said, not able to keep the admiration out of his voice.
Mrs. Weasley had sat up suddenly, brushing Ginny’s comforting hand away from her shoulder. Her eyes burned with anger,
“They should not be shouting things like that through the house! Miss anything! Ha,” she was on her feet, heading towards the door towards the stairs, “They’ll be missing a layer of skin off their hides when I’m through with them.”
As she stormed from the room, all eyes were on Fleur. No one was quite sure how she would react to Hermione’s well-conceived, but nevertheless existent, threat. Then, with a grudging respect, Fleur nodded.
“I would be very pleased to have your help, Her-my-oh-nee.”
Ginny looked as though she was about to burst into a fit of giggles, and she walked towards Harry and Ron. As soon as she was able to turn her back on Fleur, she let out a stream of silent giggles. Harry smiled and Ron still seemed to be in awe of Hermione’s smooth, uncharacteristic blackmail attempt. Well, perhaps not so out of character. After all, she had used it to break that Rita Skeeter of her gossiping and habits of writing stories that weren’t true.
Hermione rolled the parchment up, and as she passed by Harry and Ron, Ron whispered,
“That was brilliant, Hermione!”
She smiled and blushed,
“Well, I thought to myself, your mother would lose every bit of sanity she possessed dealing with this, and Ginny would probably just hex her if she wouldn’t compromise. I think I can keep my cool long enough to help fix it.”
Harry smiled at his friend,
“Great job, Hermione. Sometimes, you surprise me.”
Hermione grinned cheekily and said in such a loud voice that Harry knew she was speaking loud enough for Ginny to hear from where she was sitting on the steps laughing,
“Let’s have lunch, then, and Fleur, we can start now.”
For the next half hour, Hermione and Fleur argued. Fleur won some, but Harry was pleased to note that for every battle Fleur won, Hermione won three more. Suddenly a thought occurred to him,
“Ginny, why has Fleur waited so long to send out the invitations? The wedding’s less than four days away.”
“Well, we don’t want people to have a lot of time to spread the news of the wedding. I mean, you’re going to be here, and everyone you’re close to is going to be here, so it’s more for security than anything, isn’t it?”
Harry felt himself redden,
“I don’t want the plans to be put off just to protect me.”
Ginny was the only one who was ever so bluntly honest with him, but truthfully, he would rather she had lied about this. He felt very guilty indeed that plans were held off on his account.
“Harry, it’s not that big of a deal,” Ginny smiled, “I mean, we just send the invitations by owl, don’t we? It doesn’t take long, and people Apparate or Floo to the wedding, so it’s not like immense travel plans need to be made on the guests’ parts.”
Harry felt somewhat better, and he glanced nervously at Fleur, hoping that she had not overheard the side conversation. He did not want her to blame him for anything. But he found he had no reason to worry. Fleur and Hermione were arguing again. Ron watched the two women with obvious fascination.
“Fleur! You do NOT need to invite every man who has ever proclaimed his undying love for you! You met this man once!”
“’E was a very nice boy. I zought zat we formed quite a bond of friendship in the few minutes that we had togezzer.”
“My God, you are impossible! Either you cut one of your family members in exchange for this stranger, or he goes!”
There was a moment of silence in which Hermione and Fleur glared at each other. Finally, Fleur gave a slight nod with her magnificent head and said,
“Alright, cross John off ze list.”
Hermione looked incredulous.
“His name is Jeremy!”
“No matter,” Fleur said in an offhand manner, “’E is not coming anyway, so let us move on. ‘oo is next?”
Hermione stopped glaring at Fleur and returned her gaze to the parchment. It was covered in straight, black lines where Hermione had neatly crossed of nearly three quarters of the original list. There were only a few names left. Hermione turned suddenly red. She faltered for a moment before her gaze fell just a bit lower than where she had been reading a moment before. Harry and Ron looked at each other. She had skipped over a name.
“Who is it, Hermione?”
“What? Oh, um William Smythe, Fleur. What about him? Who is he?”
Harry and Ron knew that Hermione was lying.
“No it’s not, Hermione. We don’t know a William Smythe, and neither do you. You wouldn’t have reacted that way to someone you didn’t know,” Ron said accusingly.
“How would you know, Ron? You don’t know everyone I’ve ever met. I could have met William Smythe. Maybe we’re great friends, and I just never told you about him.” Hermione’s temper was raring.
Ron smiled cunningly,
“But you don’t know William Smythe do you, Hermione? Come on. Tell us who’s invited that you obviously don’t want us to know about.”
Hermione rolled up the parchment and laid it aside.
“You know Fleur, we cut enough people. There are only a few left, and they can all come. We have room.”
Fleur, in contrast with the puzzled, suspicious faces of Ron, Harry, and Ginny, smiled delightedly.
“Oh, good! I ‘ave to go and fetch Bill. If you would be a dear and write a final list for me, Her-my-oh-nee.”
Fleur walked to the fireplace, threw a fistful of powder into the flame, which turned green, said very clearly, “Bill’s office” and disappeared from sight.
Ginny looked at Hermione. They exchanged a meaningful look, and Ginny nodded ever-so-slightly towards Ron. Hermione gave a small nod in return. Harry knew they were communicating in that silent way that girls could always do. Harry thought perhaps that girls talked to each other so much that when they stopped speaking out loud, they could continue speaking in one anothers’ minds without any effort at all. Maybe they thought they were still speaking aloud. The whole concept of having entire conversations in complete silence just boggled Harry’s mind.
“What is it?” Ron asked, all sign of amusement gone from his face, “Ginny obviously knows now, but we can’t is that it? Girl’s little secret is it? Well, if we can’t know, but Ginny can, then it must be someone we know. Let’s think…” Ron gave the impression that he was pacing now in order to help ideas of the guest’s identity come to him, but Harry knew what he was really up to.
Granted, Harry did want to know who it was, but Hermione was obviously worried, not about Harry’s reaction to the news, but Ron’s. Harry could think of only one person to whom this secrecy from Ron would apply.
Ron snatched the parchment off the table.
“Ron!” Hermione grabbed for it, but Ron’s height gave him an advantage. He unrolled the parchment as Hermione stopped grabbing for it, and stood just behind Ron, wringing her hands nervously. Ginny put her face in her hands, as though she was expecting a massive row to break loose any second. Harry knew what was coming; all this behavior could only mean that the guest was-
“Krum!?!” Ron roared, turning so quickly that Hermione almost fell backwards. As angry as he was, Ron instinctually held Hermione’s shoulder to steady her. He did not let go, however, and used his grip to force Hermione to look at him,
“You were going to hide this from me?” he said angrily and suddenly, as if desiring nothing more than to be as far away from Hermione as he could get in the tiny kitchen, walked five paces away from her, staring at her from across the room.
“I wasn’t going to hide it, Ron-”
“What do you call what you just did!?”
“I was going to tell you, but I didn’t want to discuss it right now.”
“Why?”
“I thought you’d take it badly. Thank you so much for proving me wrong,” Hermione’s tone had moved swiftly from soothing and pleading to sarcastic and angry. The volume of their voices was beginning to increase. Harry and Ginny watched helplessly, knowing better than to interfere.
“I’m not taking it badly! I don’t care if he’s coming, but you could have told me. But maybe you were too busy imagining your wonderful reunion with Vicky! I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen him, but you should have no trouble picking up with your little affair.”
“You want to talk about ‘affairs’, Ron? What about you and Lavender? At least Viktor and I had intelligent conversations. We didn’t spend every moment together behaving like rabbits!”
“Oh, Vicky was ‘intelligent’ was he? Did you teach him the basics? One grunt for ‘yes’ two for ‘no’, because I think that’s all I’ve ever heard him do.”
“Don’t insult his intelligence like that, Ron. You don’t even know him!”
“But you know Vicky very well, don’t you Hermione!”
“Ron, that’s a low blow! After what you and Lavender used to gallivant around doing, don’t even bring up indecency with me! At least Viktor and I had the sensibility to know what should be done in private and what should be showcased to the entire world!”
“So you did snog him, then?”
“Is that what this is about Ron? Would it make you feel better if I lied and said no?”
“I’m done with this conversation, Hermione, and I hope that you and Vicky will be very happy together! Don’t think too hard about what you’ll say when you see him again. I’m sure his ‘intelligence’ will take over the moment you lay eyes on each other again.”
With this, he stormed from the room, heading out the back door. Harry knew he was headed towards the broom shed. Hermione’s eyes were brimming with tears, and she too ran from the room, presumably up to Ginny’s room.
“Well, that went really well,” Ginny said after a second.
“Yeah,” Harry said shortly, wondering how he was going to manage his friend’s fighting while they were living under the same roof.
“And they’d made so much progress,” Ginny sighed, “I thought, after all they’d been through this year, with Lavender and Cormac, I was sure they’d just give it up and realize they fancied each other.”
Harry was not even shocked by Ginny’s insight. He had come to terms with the fact that girl’s minds could pick up a potential relationship from next to nothing.
“Well, Ron knows now. He just realized. Does Hermione?”
Ginny laughed,
“Harry, Hermione’s been in love with Ron since they met. I can’t for the life of me figure out what she sees in him- he got none of my remarkable genes- but there you go.”
“If Ron fancied her too, why do you reckon he went with Lavender, then?”
Ginny chuckled at him the way adults chuckle when small children ask ridiculous questions.
“Harry, Ron needed Lavender to realize he really was good enough for Hermione. That’s all. Of course, he doesn’t know that. He thinks he did it just to get a good bit of snogging done.”
Ginny’s smile faded a bit,
“I guess I should go talk to her.”
Ginny left Harry sitting by himself. Harry wasn’t even alone long enough to contemplate his next action when Mrs. Weasley walked through the door. She had had a bit of a lie down after scolding Fred and George; scolding them was rough business, seeing as they weren’t the least bit sorry for their comments from earlier that afternoon. Harry wondered if Mrs. Weasley had heard what had just gone on.
“I heard, Harry. I think the whole village heard that row,” Mrs. Weasley said with a smile.
“How could she be smiling”, Harry thought, looking distressed, “Ron and Hermione were fighting and who knew when they would make up?”
“Oh, dear, they’ll be fine. Just give them a little time to realize that they love each other, and that this fight doesn’t matter.”
She used the word “love”. How did she know Ron and Hermione were in love? Ron hadn’t even figured it out until the night before.
“I thought it was you at first, Harry. I was taken in by those articles that horrible Skeeter woman wrote. But then I saw my Ron with her, and it became very clear how much Rita had to have fabricated to make people believe that Hermione was in love with anyone else but Ron.”
Harry recalled that Krum had also been mentioned in Rita’s articles.
“Not even Viktor Krum. Though Ron couldn’t see it; still can’t so it would seem.”
Harry stared at Mrs. Weasley. A thought had just occurred to him. She was reading his mind!
“Mrs. Weasley, are you - I mean do you - Do you practice Legilimency?”
Mrs. Weasley winked and gave him a warm smile.
“Harry, I don’t need Legilimency. I’m a mother, dear.”
Harry smiled, still wondering whether Mrs. Weasley was telling him the truth. He glanced out the window. He should probably follow Ron, but would Ron want to see him?
“I’m sure Ron wants to see you now, Harry. You should go talk to him.”
Harry nodded at her and walked towards the orchard where he knew Ron would be, marveling at the powers women seemed to possess that went beyond the magic he had learned at Hogwarts.
A/N: Alright…what do you think? Please, please, please review.