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On second thought, a towel isn’t an ideal weapon against a possibly violent intruder. She could have grabber tons of other things, her hairdryer maybe, deodorant to spray in their eyes - anything but a useless towel. But Hermione can’t go back to change it now, there is someone in her living room, crashing things and searching for anything of value. And Hermione won’t tolerate that, no matter that her hair is wet and she doesn’t have a real weapon. All she has to do is show some faked confidence in her fighting skills and threaten to call the police. And then she will have to finally install locks on the window, she has been meaning to for a while now.
Gathering her courage, Hermione grips the towel tighter, reminds herself that this is her flat and she will not surrender it to some rude and dimwitted idiot seeking to ransack her apartment. Then she steps into the room, flipping on the light to blind them.
The intruder is not what she expected. The woman has a shock of red hair, tangled into an impressive mess considering it barely reaches her chin, her clothes seem designed to get as much attention as possible instead of enabling her to sneak through the night, and she doesn’t have anything to transport her spoils. She is also heavily swaying on her feet and blinking against the light. This is either the worst planned break-in in history, or Hermione gravelly misjudged the situation.
“What are you doing here?” Her speech is slurred though no less accusing, and if Hermione were less confused she would laugh at the irony, as if she is the one who has to explain her presence here!
“This is my apartment, and you are not only trespassing but also broke a vase on your way in.” The woman frowns at her, looks at the shattered glass lying on the newly soaked and now probably ruined floor, and then back up at her.
“My brother doesn’t live here?” And suddenly Hermione knows why she looks so familiar, how she could possibly have thought climbing through her window would be a good idea. This must be Ron’s sister; he did mention she would be visiting him over the weekend. He did not mention that she would be drunk when she arrives here, drunk enough to lose the ability to count and break into the wrong apartment.
“No he doesn’t. Come on, I’ll show you out.” As soon as she lets go of the counter she has been clutching she is stumbling again and Hermione rushes forward to catch her before she can fall. The last thing she needs right now is for the drunk stranger to also become injured. She also doesn’t look as if she would get up anytime soon once she lays down, and Hermione would really prefer if that were to be at Ron’s place, under his supervision and responsibility.
“Hi there, I’m Ginny.” She either doesn’t understand what is happening or she is a flirty drunk, but Ginny smiles up at her as if she wasn’t ready to puke on her floor a second ago. Her smile is still beautiful though, and Hermione suspects she would have been rather charmed if she weren’t all too aware of the situation they are in.
Before Hermione can decide on what to do, if carrying Ginny all the way upstairs to dump her at her brother’s door isn’t actually more work than it’s worth, Crookshanks demands their attention with a loud noise, interrupting the moment. With a cooing sound and a surprising agility Ginny squirms out of her arms and kneels down next to Crookshanks, who looks far too pleased with himself.
There is no way she can throw Ginny out now, not when Crookshanks likes her. Seeing her fuss over him, mumbling intelligible and resting her head on his, Hermione can admit that that might not be too bad.