The day of Bill of Fleur's wedding had finally arrived. Naturally, the Burrow was completely chaotic. Mrs. Weasley was running around, desperately trying to get her sons into their dress robes, whilst they were busy fighting with each other and casting various jinxes in each other's direction. Harry watched, amused, as Ron decided to disapparate whenever a jinx came his way rather than defend himself. All that had left Ron's appearance looking rather odd. One of his eyebrows had been left in the kitchen and his nose in the hallway.
"FOR GOODNESS SAKES RONALD!" bellowed Mrs. Weasley "YOU CANNOT GO TO A WEDDING LOOKING LIKE THAT! GET OVER HERE IMMEDIATELY…"
"Mum!! It's not all my fault you know, blame those two oafs over there!!" he said, indicating towards Fred and George who were laughing hysterically at a nose less Ron.
"ALL THREE OF YOU STOP THIS AT ONCE!" shouted Mrs. Weasley with an air of finality in her voice. All three shut up without further ado.
"Now," she continued " I need you to get into your dress robes and disapparate yourselves to the gardens"
"Maybe you don't want Ron doing that alone Mum," said Fred sniggering "He might leave his head behind this time…"
"Of course he talks out of his arse so much you'd probably not even notice," said George. Ron's face went very red at this comment and he reached for his wand.
"If you three so much as think about touching your wands I'll give you what for…" said Mrs. Weasley. Ron's journey for his wand stopped abruptly.
Eventually everyone was ready and it was time to leave. Harry was relieved that he had spent the last two weeks practicing and finally passing his apparition test; he certainly did not want to have to apparate with Ron. The Weasley family left first, since most of them were in the wedding party and had to be there earlier than the rest of the guests. Harry was sitting in a comfy chair in the living room, basking in the silence that he had been looking forward to since he woke up. He was making mental notes to himself on what he had to do next. Lupin had told them of a cottage they could stay in, located in a village close to Cambridge. Apparently Dumbledore had been quite fond of spending a few weeks there during the school holidays, so it was a good safe haven. To avoid attracting attention to themselves, they decided to travel as muggles. Hermione had gone into London and bought her, Ron and Harry clothes. She had also bought the train tickets from London to Cambridge, departing tomorrow morning at 8am. Luckily they didn't have to worry about luggage because Hermione had ordered removal men to drive everything they needed to the cottage. Harry supposed that even dressed as muggles their luggage might attract enough attention to them to be dangerous. He laughed to himself as he remembered Ron's reaction to Hermione's method of paying for the clothes and tickets.
"You paid with a piece of plastic?" asked Ron, looking at it with amazement "You know, I knew muggles were a bit strange but I thought that you at least knew how to use money…"
"Ron, it's called a debit card. Rather than have to go into the bank and get a bag of money like you do at Gringotts, we just use a card. It just comes out of your account, it's really easy," explained Hermione.
"What kind of a name is 'Barclays' anyway?" asked Ron looking confused "I don't know if I'm going to be able to travel as a muggle…I don't get anything that lot do."
Hermione stood at the doorway in the living room watching Harry smile to himself. The sight of him dressed up so nicely made her catch her breath and she had to wait a couple of seconds before speaking.
"What are you smiling about Harry," she asked, relieved to find her voice steady. Harry turned around at the sound of her voice and was amazed. She wore a set of pale pink dress robes, which complemented her figure perfectly. Her hair was curled and pinned in various places so that it looked tousled. She had on some make up, but just enough to enhance her beauty. In short, she looked gorgeous. Harry swallowed hard at the sight of her and turned his head away so that she wouldn't see the look in his eyes.
"Uh…" said Harry, feeling uncomfortable once again "I was thinking about Ron's reaction to your Barclay card, and how tomorrow is going to be harder work than I thought it would be." Hermione smiled at this then said -
"He still hasn't told his mum and dad you know, but I don't know how to get him to hurry up and do it. He's talking about leaving a letter for goodness sakes! Even I spoke to my parents face to face; it's the least they deserve. We're supposed to be adults now. Do you think you could speak to him? I don't think it's fair on Molly and Arthur to be left in the dark this way." Harry thought about Hermione's words for a moment and realised that she was right, as usual. This was no time for cowardice.
"Don't worry about it Hermione" replied Harry "If Ron won't do it himself, I'll do it for him." Hermione smiled at this then went and sat on the floor next to Harry.
"I know we should be leaving soon," she said "But I wanted to see how you're doing. So much has been going on the last couple of weeks that we haven't had much of a chance to talk alone"
"I'm fine Hermione" he said "I feel awful saying this, but I just want to get going so we can start working on this Horcrux thing. I'm glad that we've all been able to spend this kind of time together though, who knows when we'll be able to do it again?"
"So, how do you feel about leaving Ginny?" she asked, feeling nervous and waiting anxiously for his response, however she did a very good job of acting like she was nonchalant. Harry sighed and looked up at the ceiling. He waited to speak for about twenty seconds, but to Hermione it seemed like a lifetime.
"I don't know Hermione" he finally said sounding weary "Did you ever notice how young she is? I mean she's funny and beautiful, but she's just so young."
"But she's only a year younger than us Harry," said Hermione, and then wished she could smack herself for actually saying that out loud. She felt ashamed of her thoughts; after all she really did like Ginny.
"I know that, but she acts so young. She wouldn't be able to handle what I've got to do." Harry stood up and rolled his shoulders, trying to release the knots that had formed over the last few weeks. He felt stressed and tense. The sooner he could get on with his tasks the better.
"Well" Harry said quickly "I suppose we'd better go" Hermione looked at him for a moment longer, smiled at him and said -
"I can handle what you've got to do Harry." With a crack she was gone.
Harry stood there for a while longer staring at where she had been standing. What on Earth did she mean by that? He seemed to think about this for quite a while then finally managed to come up with a decent enough explanation. 'She's obviously just trying to say that her and Ron will be there for me no matter what, that they can handle this because we're such good mates." Harry thought to himself. 'Weird way to say it though…' After calming himself down with those thoughts he too left for the gardens in which Bill and Fleur would be married.
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