Dirty Laundry

A/N: Another multi-chaptered fanfiction. Unlike the other, I’m actually ahead on this one. The beginning chapter or latter half of the beginning chapter, anyway, may be a bit strange. All will be explained soon. Happy reading?

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“Ugh. I hate laundry.”

“Me too.”

“Doing it the muggle way is total rubbish,” said the young Ginerva Weasley. She tried desperately to fold a plain white t-shirt, and failed. Grumbling and tossing the t-shirt aside in aggravation, she turned and glared at her friend, the also young Hermione Granger. “Why are we doing this the muggle way? Why, when we could just flick our wands and be done with it?!?”

Hermione Granger shrugged. “Folding laundry isn’t that tormenting, Ginny, once you get used to it.”

“Oh, I never will!”

“Harry likes doing laundry the muggle way; he says it’s relaxing. And he’s convinced it comes out better this way than with magic.”

“I beg to differ,” Ginny mumbled.

Again, Hermione shrugged. “Well, according to Harry, some things are better done the muggle way. Maybe it’s my muggle roots talking, but I sort of…agree.”

Ginny scoffed and out of the corner of her eye, Hermione was sure she saw Ginny roll her eyes. She finished her sloppy, insufficient folding of a pair of socks, and tossed them carelessly into the nearby laundry basket. Hermione continued to stand near the muggle washer and dryer folding the rest of the clothes as Ginny crossed the room and sat on top of the empty wooden table against the wall. Her long legs dangled over the table, and she kicked them back and forth in boredom.

“Can you believe it’s all just a week away?” Ginny asked, now running both hands through some of her long, red strands of hair. She continued to swing her legs back and forth.

“Are you excited?” Hermione asked, smiling at Ginny. She neatly set down the pair of socks Ginny had wrongly folded; she couldn’t leave them so disorderly, and so she had decided to re-fold them for Harry.

“You bet I am,” Ginny replied, swinging her legs even faster. She released a shuddering sigh. “I’ve been dreaming of this for ten and a half bloody long years!”

Hermione distracted herself with more folding. Ginny took Hermione’s silence as permission to continue.

“I’ve never been happier,” Ginny said. “Every morning I’ve frankly been waking up with this big, fat smile on my face. It’s…nice.”

Hermione peeked over her shoulder at Ginny and smiled at her. “It sounds nice.”

“Oh, believe me, it is. Mum’s just overwhelming me with her talk of wedding plans. I mean already. We’re not even officially engaged yet,” Ginny said.

“Well, it is your wedding day. You want everything to be perfect, don’t you?”

“Yeah, sure, but you know how my mum is; all work, no play. It’s tiring for me. All I know is I’m getting married to Harry James Potter, my dream man,” Ginny said. “I don’t care what kind of wine is served…I don’t care! At least not right now. She can’t even let me enjoy my engagement party before we get into all of that stuff.”

“My mum would be too busy at the dentist office to nag me about those types of things,” Hermione said, almost sadly.

“Well, who knows?” Ginny said. She grinned. “Maybe she’ll be planning a wedding for her only daughter and child sooner than she suspects!”

“Ginny!” Hermione squeaked, going a deep shade of red. “I’m not even dating anyone, I’m single!”

“For now.”

“Ginny!” Hermione said. She urged her voice to be stern and forbidding, but she failed miserably. Instead her reddening cheeks were getting worse, and a smile was creeping onto her face.

“What? So I’m rooting for a wedding for my best girl friend. Excuuuuuse me!”

“Well, you can put your rooting on hold for now. Miss Granger is steering clear of men for the time being,” Hermione said, attempting once again to distract herself with folding Harry’s laundry.

“Okay, okay. Fine, fine.” Ginny paused. “Do you at least have your eyes on someone?”

“No!”

“That no sounds curiously like a yes!”

“My no sounds curiously like a no, because that’s just what it is.”

Ginny seemed to have given up. She shrugged and her chocolate brown eyes fell to the laundry room floor. She swung her legs some more, apparently lost in thought. Hermione took this opportunity to lose herself in her own thoughts as she finished up Harry’s laundry. Suddenly and unexpectedly, Ginny burst out into laughter. Hermione nearly jumped.

“What’s so funny?” Hermione asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Ginny replied, chuckling. “I was just thinking about…well, do you remember the night of Harry’s seventeenth birthday party?”

Hermione’s stomach churned. She hesitated to answer. “Of course I do.”

“I was just thinking how funny it was, you know, that things have completely changed. I can’t believe you thought you had feelings for Harry,” Ginny said, chuckling some more. “Things have changed quite a bit.”

“That’s usually what happens when time goes by,” said Hermione.

“I don’t know why I find it so funny. I just do, I guess. You and Harry are too good as friends for that kind of stuff.”

“We are.”

“But I guess everyone has doubts. There was a moment or year when I, for some stupid reason, thought I liked Neville. So I know how you were feeling,” Ginny said vaguely.

“Yes, it was just the effects of Harry’s birthday…me worrying that it might be his last and all,” Hermione said, shrugging. “I have strictly platonic feelings for Harry.”

“Um, Hermione.”

“Yes?”

“Why are you holding onto his boxers like that?”

“I…huh?”

“Harry’s boxers, you’ve been clinging to those things for like twenty seconds,” Ginny pointed out, eyebrows raised. “You can let them go now.”

Hermione looked down at her hands and jumped with embarrassed shock. Her grip on Harry’s boxers were quite tight. She blushed furiously and tossed them into the laundry basket. She didn’t bother to fold them. She was afraid to touch them again.

“Errr,” she said, still red, “sorry about that.”

Ginny only laughed airily. “Yeah, me too.”

“Home!”

Both girls turned their heads to the direction of the doorway at the sound of Harry’s voice. Ginny quickly hopped off of the empty table she’d been sitting on and left the room without another word. Hermione hesitated, wondering why she constantly made such a fool of herself around Ginny whenever the subject was on Harry. She ran her fingers through her hair and urged herself to stop blushing and act decently.

When she left the room and entered the entrance hall, she was greeted by the sight of Harry and Ginny in a torrid kiss; Ginny had thrown herself into Harry’s arms, legs wrapped around his waist, hands shifting between his locks of unruly black hair, as their lips touched and tongues fought. Hermione scratched the back of her neck and cleared her throat.

The two pulled away, Harry looking utterly embarrassed and Ginny looking her usual self.

“Hermione, I didn’t know you were here!” Harry said.

“I would’ve told you if you hadn’t ambushed me with that kiss!” Ginny teased.

Harry laughed. “You jumped into my arms, Ginny, remember?”

They shared a smile. Hermione felt the need to scratch the back of her neck again.

“I was on my way out,” Hermione said.

“We did laundry,” Ginny said, grabbing Harry by the hand and guiding him to the laundry room. “Might I add it was the muggle way?”

Hermione couldn’t help the involuntary urge of wanting to point out that she did laundry, Ginny simply stood and watched, and later folded a pair of socks; incorrectly at that.

“You did my laundry?” Harry said to Ginny as they stood in the doorway of the room. “Thanks!”

He kissed her swiftly on the lips. Ginny beamed.

“Anywho,” Hermione said loudly, to get their attention, “I was on my way out.”

“Are you sure, Hermione?” Harry asked. “We should all go out to dinner.”

Hermione didn’t feel like being the third wheel, and so she shook her head no.

“I have plans actually,” she lied. “I better go or I’ll be late for those…plans.”

“Oooh, are you going out on a date?” Ginny asked. “With who?”

Hermione pretended to have not heard her as she took that opportunity to Apparate from Harry’s house.

###

Exactly a week later…

“So,” Hermione said, swaying on the pub stool, “I’m thinkin’ to hell with him!”

The very short and petite Cho Chang nodded. “Couldn’t have said it better!”

Hermione sighed and looked down at her wristwatch. She had to blink a few times to make sure the time she was seeing was correct. “When’d three hours go by?” she asked.

Cho shrugged. “Um, three hours ago?”

Hermione laughed, though she wasn’t sure that made too much sense. “I just can’t believe her.”

“Who?”

“That Weasley witch, that’s who!”

“Ohhh. Yeah. She’s such a witch. In more ways than one!”

“How could she do such things?” Hermione asked, sighing. She stared at the empty bottle of fire whiskey before her without really seeing it. “I don’t even know what I should do about it. Bullocks.”

“Take revenge,” Cho advised, nodding her head a bit too fervently. “She can’t get away with that. Especially tonight, when they’re celebrating being engaged!”

“I can’t. The witch is my friend,” Hermione said disappointedly.

“And so is Harry!” Cho urged. “So is Ron.”

“What does he have to do with this?”

Cho shrugged. “I dunno. I’m just talking.”

“I think I need something else to drink,” Hermione said, rubbing her temples.

“No, no! What we need is to go back to the engagement party, and do what is right! It’s our duty,” Cho said, grabbing Hermione by the wrist and pulling her up from the pub stool. “We have to!”

Hermione didn’t say a word. Cho led her from the Three Broomsticks a moment later.

###

“Hermione?”

“Ron?”

“I thought you left,” said Ron, Hermione Granger’s other best friend.

She blinked up at him several times. He looked so tall and fuzzy.

“Are you all right?” Ron asked. “You’re falling asleep on the kitchen stool!”

“I’m tired.”

“You said you were going home,” Ron said, shrugging. “Why’d you come back? The party’ll be over soon.”

Hermione blinked some more and looked down at her wristwatch. “Oh! Oh my…I did come back, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, I just said that…”

She took a glance around the empty kitchen. She couldn’t remember getting there; the last memory of hers was leaving the Three Broomsticks alongside Cho Chang. She had no clue what was going on now.

“No one knows I came back, do they?”

“Well, they saw you…but you’ve been in the kitchen almost the entire time,” Ron explained. “You came back with Cho, might I add. We, Harry and me, found that…odd.”

“No, no…that’s not important right now, Ron!” Hermione said, jumping up from the kitchen stool. Her eyes were wide and her expression feverish. “I remember why I came back!”

“Okay. Why?”

“It’s not for you to know. Where’s Ginny?”

“She’s in the family room, with the rest of the guests. Are you all right? We should floo you home,” Ron suggested.

“Not a chance!” Hermione exclaimed, pushing Ron aside and heading for the kitchen door. She pushed it open and entered the dining room. Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown stood with glasses of wines chatting amongst themselves. Hermione brushed past them without paying them the slightest of attention, and she entered the living room, the noise of the engagement party hitting her ears in an instant.

She stood, for a moment, in the doorway as she stared with bemusement at the room-full of people. She was trying to spot Ginny, but her long red hair and long pale legs weren’t very recognizable out of a crowd of so many mingling party guests.

“Hermione!” Cho called, waving her arms hysterically and hurrying over. “I know where she is! Over there…near the big, big window!”

Hermione looked in the direction Cho was excitedly pointing in. Indeed Ginny was there, talking privately with Harry. The two looked happy, identical smiles on their faces.

Hermione’s eyes narrowed. She couldn’t believe the nerve of that woman!

“We can’t let her get away with it, Hermione,” Cho said. She staggered a little, stepping into the wall. “She’s a wench.”

Cho was right. Ginny couldn’t get away with what she’d done. Hermione, though not in the clearest mind, was in no way going to let her.

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A/N: As always thank you for reading, now please review.