It was a wet and dreary Saturday afternoon and Ginny was in her bedroom looking out the window, wishing the rain would go away. There had been a torrent pouring down all day and most of the day before. She was bored and fed up with it. While the weather was so bad she couldn’t go outside and play Quidditch or go flying or play in the garden. Not that she would have minded getting wet, but her mother wouldn’t let her, not with all the thunderstorms.
Ginny really wanted to get outside, but she was stuck in her room for at least the next hour. Ginny had hit the roof because Ron and Hermione were arguing all the time, and had been sent to her room by her mother. ‘Talk about hypocritical,’ she had thought to herself while her mum was yelling.
She heard the door open and then close again. Ginny didn’t bother to turn around; it was probably just her mother coming up to apologise or Hermione bringing up a snack. Instead she heard a deep male voice, not a female one, as she would have expected.
“Hey Honey!” The voice was soft and pleasant - it was Harry.
“Hi.”
“Is there something the matter? I mean, besides not being able to go outside and your mum forcing you to stay in here?” Harry's voice was kind and full of concern.
“No,” she replied as she got up and walked over to her bed on the other side of the room. Harry sat down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders.
“I just want to go outside, that’s all, nothing out of the ordinary. To do something, rather than being all cooped up in here.”
“Fine. The second it stops we’ll get out of bed, even if it’s at night, otherwise I’ll just come and get you. We’ll go for a picnic.
“Sure, great.”
It had been four o'clock in the afternoon when Harry had stopped by Ginny's room. By eight-thirty it still hadn’t stopped raining. The two teenagers had whittled away their afternoon in Ginny’s room, talking, playing chess and more talking. After dinner, (Ginny had finally been allowed to come down), they had spent the evening playing Exploding Snap with Ron and Hermione “ who had stopped arguing for a while, talking to Bill and Charlie about Egypt and Romania, because they were both home, and laughing at Fred and George’s jokes.
Everybody had gone to bed at around ten-thirty, although Ginny was lying in her bed, listening to the rain. She was desperate for it to stop. The Weasley family clock had just chimed three-thirty when the incessant drumming on the window pane finally abated. The rain had finally stopped. Ginny almost jumped out of bed and, careful not to wake Hermione, tiptoed into Ron’s room. Knowing that her brother was a heavy sleeper and that they wouldn’t wake him, she crept over to Harry’s bed.
“Harry! Harry!” she whispered but he didn’t wake. “Harry!” She whispered with more force and shook him. “Harry, wake up!”
Eventually he woke up.
“What do you want?” he grumbled, realising who it was.
“It’s stopped raining, Harry. Come on, get up! We’re going for a picnic!”
“I’m wishing I hadn’t said anything about a picnic in the middle of the night now.”
Grudgingly Harry sat up, hanging his legs over the side of the bed. He told her to put on some warm clothes and to start preparing the food basket before shooing her out so he could get dressed. After getting dressed, the still drowsy teen went into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. It was just plain cruel to have to get up in the middle of the night.
Harry went downstairs to the lounge room and over to the blanket box. He knew there was a picnic blanket in there; he had checked the day before. He opened the hinged lid, trying not to let it creak too much, before pulling out the blanket he was after as well as a large, thick spare one.
He placed the lid back down and then walked into the kitchen to find Ginny at the counter packing a large basket with milk, treacle tart (his favourite), biscuits, cookies, muffins and pieces of cake. She had also put in two large Butterbeers, some cutlery, plates, bowls and glasses.
“How long are you packing for? A week?” he asked, amused at how she was attempting to fit everything in.
“Ha, ha, very funny. That’s the best joke I’ve ever heard,” she commented sarcastically.
Harry walked over and out his hands around her waist. “Yes, it was rather, wasn’t it?” He deliberately made it sound like he’d missed the sarcasm when he actually hadn’t.
“I’ve got a picnic rug and a blanket so we can sit down and be warm and dry.”
“Excellent. Are you ready to go?”
“Yup.”
“Come on then, we haven’t got all night, it’s already four.”
“Yes, mum.”
Together they picked up the things; Ginny the basket, Harry the blankets, and set off outside. They walked out to the field where they normally played Quidditch and, by the moonlight, set up their blanket near the vegetable patch. Sitting down on the rug, they opened the basket, where Harry immediately started on the treacle tart and a glass of milk. They had finished off most of the food at about a quarter to five, so they stacked the dishes in the basket and lay down on their backs. Harry’s arm around Ginny’s shoulder, and they looked up at the stars whilst they talked.
“Ginny, how long had you liked me before we started going out?”
“P…p… probably from a… about age n… nine, but the w…way I liked y…you then t…to the way I l…like you n… n… now has ch…changed. Ch… changed a lot, now that I’ve gotten to kn… know y… you better,” she said, her teeth chattering from the cold.
“Wow… I never really realised how in depth and complicated your love for me could be.” He looked at her and grinned so she knew she was joking. “Sorry about that Gin, I didn’t realise how cold you must be.
He unfolded the spare blanket and put one half over her and the other half over himself. They talked for a little while longer, then, at about five o’clock, just as the sun was rising over the hills, they fell asleep, with the blanket still around them.
“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!” Mrs Weasleys voice ‘greeted’ them.
Harry’s eyes snapped open. He did not want to be the one to suffer Mrs Weasley’s wrath. He glanced over at Ginny to find her asleep.
“Ginny! Ginny! Wake Up!” he hissed, nudging her.
“Mmm?”
“Your mum’s here.”
“Fabulous,” she whispered sarcastically.
“Yeah. Oh and Gin, can you get off my arm, it’s kinda dead?”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he replied as he massaged his arm, trying to get some feeling back into it.
Mrs Weasley continued to shriek at them while Bill, George and Ron watched through the window of the back door with it slightly ajar so they could hear what was being said.
When Mrs. Weasley had finally calmed down enough to let them speak, they gave her a vague version of events, or rather that they had gone out for a midnight picnic and had fallen asleep. She let them off (after making them swear black and blue that they hadn’t done anything but talk, eat and sleep) as much as she could from what she had already done, but she wasn’t happy with the pair of them.
Afterwards, they went inside and had breakfast - pancakes with ice-cream - before Harry went into the lounge for a game of chess with Ron, whilst Ginny disappeared upstairs with Hermione.
Harry’s game against Ron was really more of a one-sided uphill battle, but he played anyway.
“Darn!” Harry swore as Ron took one of his knights.
Meanwhile, up in Ginny’s bedroom, Hermione was interrogating Ginny as to what had really happened out side the night before.
“Ginny, what really happened last night with you and Harry?”
“Nothing, I swear it.” Hermione raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her.
“Truly!” She said, already exasperated. “Nothing happened. All we did was eat, talk and then sleep.”
“Sure.” Hermione made sure to add more than a touch of sarcasm to this comment.
“Really Hermione! You’ve got to believe me!”
“It’s okay,” she said seriously, “I really do believe you.”
“Good. Now, onto other business.”
“Erm… like what?”
“You and Ron.”
“What! You’ve got to be joking.”
“Come on. Only Blind Freddy and Harry can’t see you’re going out.”
“We aren’t that obvious are we?”
“Darl, I’m afraid you are. Every night in the lounge you constantly stare, then if one of you leaves the room to go upstairs, the other shortly follows. You know what you do.”
“We’ll have to break it to him soon, won’t we.”
“Yup. I’ve got a good way to as well.”
Ginny set about telling Hermione of her plans. They would go out for a picnic one day for lunch and they would break it to him then. If all went to plan, he would take it well. That was the catch. If he took it well. That was why they had refrained from telling him, because of his unpredictable temper; he could be perfectly content one minute and full of rage the next.
The two girls desperately hoped he would be in a good mood that day.
A Midnight Picnic by HarryGinnyMustLiveOn
Chapter Notes: I'd like to give a big thank you to my beta reader Mojomig, who was legendary and sent this story back and forth to me until it was perfect. So, big round of applause ;)