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Harry Potter and the Summer of the Bundling Charm
A Harry Potter fanfic
By Andrew yclept Aelfwine

Rating: PG. 7,000 words
***
The characters and situations of the Harry Potter series are copyright J.K. Rowling. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.
***
This is an idea I've been contemplating for a while, probably since not long after I wrote "The Bundling Charm."
***

"Arthur," Molly Weasley said, following her husband out into the farmyard where he'd stepped to have a quiet smoke, leaving the children with their pudding, "I've been thinking about where Harry's going to sleep."

"We'll put a camp bed in Ron's room, of course," he said. "The boys should like that--just like school, right?" He smiled, puffing meditatively on his pipe.

"Actually... Ginny is starting to grow up. And Harry... well, they'd be good with each other, wouldn't they?"

"Perhaps, love, perhaps. But it's early days yet. They're only eleven and twelve, remember? And what does that have to do with sleeping?"

"I was thinking to put up a Bundling Charm, just for propriety's sake, and put Harry in with Ginny. That would give them a chance to get to know each other before all their hormones start working."

"Isn't that a bit like something your grandmother would have done?"

"I don't remember you complaining when Gran put us to bed together with a Bundling Charm."

"Molly, we were nearly fifteen. We were already stepping out together when I came to visit for the first time. Admit it... if she'd not done, we'd probably have sneaked off and got up to God knows what in the barn instead."

"Ginny's so shy with him, Arthur. I don't like that. They should be friends, at least. There's no chance of them ever being anything more if they can't even say three words between them without her going red and stammery."

"They'll have time..."

"Ron's going to stop them being able to talk at all, the rest of the time. Remember how nice it was? Curled up together in bed for the first time, no pressure for anything more... just able to talk, and hold each other, and sleep?"

"It was. All right... if they're not too put out at the idea, go ahead. But no pressure. I don't want them embarrassed."

#

It was a little while before bedtime when Molly took Ginny aside. "How do you feel about Harry?"

"Umm... he's Harry Potter, Mum."

"Ginevra... what do you think of him as a person? Do you like him?"

"I... I don't know what to say to him, Mum. I... he must think I'm such a baby."

"You're only a year younger, Ginny. You just need to get to know one another."

"But... Ron's always talking with him, dragging him off to do boy things."

"He couldn't do that if you and Harry were alone together."

"But, Mum, when?"

"Harry could sleep with you tonight."

"Mum! He's a boy! It wouldn't be right. And Ron will say all sorts of awful things..."

"Remember all my stories about my Gran? She knew lots of old-fashioned spells. And one of them was the Bundling Charm. It... well, no need to get into details, but it makes it so boys and girls can sleep together without any risk of... misbehaviour. When I was at Hogwarts, your father came home to stay with us one Christmas holiday. And Gran cast the Bundling Charm on my room, so we could stay together. It was really nice. It would give you and Harry a chance to talk."

"Really, Mum?"

"Really. I'll not make you do it. If you don't want to, or Harry doesn't, we'll not speak another word on the subject. But if you'd like to, we can ask him."

"He'll never say yes," Ginny said.

"We'll see."

#

Ginny was surprised at how easy it was. Mum took Harry and herself aside while she was making hot chocolate, and asked him. All Harry said was "Would it be okay with you, Ginny?"

She blushed and stammered out a "Yes."

It seemed as if he took a thousand years to say the next word, but she knew that wasn't really true. "Umm... I'm fine with it, then."

She wanted to hug him, babble her thanks over and over again into his ear. But she couldn't. "Okay," she said, and held out her hand. Harry took it, and smiled at her. It was more than she'd ever dared hope for.

Half an hour later, everyone got up from the kitchen table and headed for bed. "Come on, Harry," Ron said, "you'll stay in my room."

"Actually," Molly said, "I thought this would be a good chance for Harry and Ginny to get to know each other, so I'm putting a Bundling Charm on Ginny's room. They'll stay together."

"Mum! That... you can't do that to poor Harry."

"Ronald," Fred said, "did you just..."

"Insult... George continued

"Our little sister?"

"Umm... it's just... she's a girl. He's a boy. Why would Harry want to stay with her? She'll probably keep him up all night talking about horses and clothes and daft girly things."

"I'm sure they'll have plenty of things to talk about," Molly said.

"Besides... didn't you tell me not to mess about with girls? Not that I'd want to, or anything, but it's not proper, right?"

"Mother said there would be a Bundling Charm," Percy said. "It's perfectly proper Wizarding custom, not 'messing about' at all. They're not too young to start thinking about making a good match."

"Besides," George said, "this is our sister. She's a bright girl, and it would be a fine thing for Harry to get to know her."

"If there were a young lady of the appropriate age staying with us," Molly said, "there's a good chance I'd put a Bundling Charm on your room and put her in with you, Ron."

Ron mock-shuddered, but his brothers' twin glare was enough to convince him to not say anything more about girls and the ickiness thereof.

As for Harry and Ginny, they were both blushing and looking away from both each other and the rest of the company... but also holding hands. Ron shook his head and headed for his room. "Come along," Molly said softly to Harry and Ginny, "time for bed. Why don't you go and change into your pyjamas in the bathroom, Harry?"

#

A little while later, dressed in their pyjamas, their teeth cleaned, they found themselves being tucked into Ginny's double bed by Molly Weasley. Harry looked politely aside as Molly hugged and kissed Ginny. When his friend's mother embraced him, Harry didn't quite know what to do. Fortunately, hugging her back was apparently the right choice.

"Good night, children," Molly said. "Don't stay up too late talking." She blew out the candle and closed the door.

They looked at each other. And looked. At last, Harry said "Err... you sleepy?" He stammered almost as badly as Ginny had done this morning.

"A little."

"Umm... how do we do this? I mean, I've never slept in the same bed with anyone before."

"Well... when my friend Luna sleeps over we usually just lie next each other and talk quietly until we fall asleep. Although I usually wake up and find Luna's got her arm round me, or she's using my shoulder for a pillow, and there was this one time she had her head on my feet... Umm, you don't have to do that. Not that I mind if you do, I just mean..."

"It's okay, Ginny," Harry said. "I... if you want to use me for a pillow, that would be... fine. But you don't have to. Umm... I could even sleep on the floor, if you'd rather."

"But, Harry... it's a little chilly at night, and the floor's hard. I couldn't do that to you."

"I'm used to it," he said. "Until last year, I slept on a pallet in a cupboard. I only had a couple of blankets, at best."

"Oh, Harry, that's awful. Why...?"

"Same reason as why there were bars on the window when your brothers came to collect me. My aunt and uncle don't much like me."

"Harry..." she forgot her embarrassment. Somehow, Harry Potter had just ceased to be a storybook hero to Ginny Weasley. Somehow, he'd become something much more precious. And she hugged him, tightly. "That's... that's not right. I wish... I wish I could do something."

After a moment, he hugged her back. "Thanks, Ginny. It's all right." She realised that her eyes were moist. Harry should be the one crying, but here she was, crying on him.

"I'm sorry. So sorry."

"It's all right, Ginny. I'm here, now, not there."

"I'm sorry I'm crying on you. It's ridiculous."

"No, it's not. Thank you," he said. He wiped her eyes with his sleeve, scrounged a hanky from his trouser pocket for her to blow her nose on. He wiped his own eyes as well... she didn't know if he'd been tearing up as well, or if it was simply a way of being polite. "You know," he said, "when my friend Hermione hugged me last year, it was the first time I'd ever been hugged, at least when I remembered it. And now... your Mum's hugged me, and you've hugged me... you've tripled the number of hugs I've had."

"Well, then," she said, "I'm going to hug you at least twice every day, if I can help it. And even when I've hugged you a hundred thousand times, it still won't be enough."

"Thanks," he said. "Umm... do you want to sleep now?"

"I am sort of tired," she said. They lay down and pulled the blankets up to their necks. "Harry?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"Could I... would you... umm... could we hug each other as we sleep? I... I used to sleep with my teddy, but... since you're here, I thought... You don't have to, but..."

"I'd like to. I don't know how to, but I'd like to." They started off facing each other, which was nice, but Ginny had to believe it was making Harry's arm fall asleep, and it was kind of doing the same thing to her.

"Is it okay if I roll over? We'd sort of... nest, that way. Like a set of spoons, you know?"

"Sure," Harry said. She did. And it was perfect.

He put his right arm under her neck, and draped his left over her body. She took his left hand in both of hers. "'s that good?"

"Yes. G'night, Ginny."

"Night, Harry."

#

The alarm clock rang, and Molly Weasley extracted herself from Arthur's arms. He stumbled off to the bath to shave, and she went to wake the children. I hope they've got on all right, she thought as she headed to Ginny's room. Well, if they didn't, Harry can go on the camp bed in Ron's room tomorrow. They are young. She knocked at the door, and softly opened it.

There was a great roll of duvet on the bed, with a mass of red and black hair sticking out at the top. "Morning, Mum," Ginny said. Harry mumbled something. "Your breath tickles my neck, Harry." He pulled her closer, and she smiled blissfully for a moment. "Come on, Harry, wake up."

His head snapped up and his eyes went open. "Umm... Good morning, Mrs. Weasley."

"Good morning, Harry. I'll go and start cooking breakfast, now. You two get yourselves out of bed, all right?"

"I'll come and help you, Mrs. Weasley."

"Don't worry about it, Harry."

"I've always cooked breakfast, since I was five or so."

Five? That was too young, surely. Well, Muggles no doubt had their own customs... "It's good that you're such a skilled and helpful boy, Harry, but I'll be fine."

"All right, Mrs. Weasley. Thanks."

She closed the door. The children liked each other. All was well.

#

The door closed, and Ginny sat up. "Good morning, Harry."

Harry sat up as well. "Good morning, Ginny. Sleep well?"

"Ever so well. You?"

"Yes." His arm was round her shoulders. That was awfully nice. "Thanks."

"Harry," she said, "it's time for your hug."

"Oh?"

"Yes. You need an awful lot of hugs to make up for all the ones you've missed. So, I'm going to hug you good morning."

"Thanks." He hugged her back. It was starting to feel more and more natural, more like hugging Mum and Dad, or her big brothers Bill and Charlie. Or like hugging Luna, who always wanted to hug her, on greeting and parting and sometimes just at random because there was nothing else happening. Luna was with her father in Spain right now, looking for some mysterious creature or other. That was too bad. Ginny wanted her to meet Harry. Like Ginny, Luna had read all the story books, but the real Harry Potter was infinitely better.

Well, there'll be time at school. If Ron lets Harry spend any time with me at all. If that Hermione girl isn't jealous, and doesn't drag Harry away. If... She beat back the feelings. Harry Potter was hugging her. That meant just about anything good could happen, after all.

I suppose it would be awkward if Luna were at home. She'd want to stay over, and I can't believe Mum would let all three of us sleep in the same bed.

They let each other go at last, and disentangled themselves from the bedclothes. "You don't snore, Ginny," Harry said. "It's really nice."

She giggled, and pretended to punch his shoulder. "You've such a way with words, Harry. That's the perfect compliment for a girl."

His face fell. "I didn't mean it that way, really. It's just... Ron snores so. You don't. It's nice. That's all."

"Oh, Harry," she said, and hugged him tight. "I'm sorry. I'm only teasing you. It's a nice thing to say. It's just... not what I'd ever expected Harry Potter would say to me after I'd slept all night in his arms."

"And what did you expect me to say?"

"Alas, dearest Lady Ginevra, I must leave thee, and go to fight the fearsome dragon of Dunwich--" she broke down laughing before she could get the rest out. "Well, that's the sort of thing the heroes in Mum's romance novels are always saying. I think I like 'You don't snore' much better, really. I'd rather you didn't go fighting any dragons."

"Okay," he said. "If any dragons show up, I'll just tell them that Ginny Weasley said they're not to fight with me, and they'll run away, I'm sure."

Laughing, they went down to breakfast. It wasn't until mid-morning that Ginny realised she'd gone from being too terrified to talk to Harry Potter to being friends with him.

She'd expected Ron would drag Harry off to do some boyish thing or other, but to her surprise Harry insisted on including her in everything. Ron seemed a bit put out, but as the day wore on he seemed to accept things. It was nice, really, more like how it had been when they were little, before Ron decided that boys were better than girls and started telling her to go play with her dolls when he took the old broomstick out over the paddock.

That night, when Harry came to take his turn in the bathroom after she'd had hers, she hugged him in the doorway. "See you in a few minutes, Harry."

"Sure thing, Gin." She stretched up slightly, as Harry was an inch or two taller, and brushed her lips across his cheek.

When she sat down on her bed, she began worrying. Had she gone too far? It was a nervous Ginny Weasley who greeted Harry when he came to bed. "Umm... I'm sorry if..."

"Don't be, Ginny," he said, and nuzzled her cheek. She couldn't help it. She kissed his cheek in return, for real, this time. After a long moment, he kissed hers.

The next morning they kissed each others' cheeks, as well as hugging. It seemed appropriate, somehow, and swiftly became part of their good night and good morning routines.

#

Remember that saying about great oaks from little acorns? In many timelines, Harry Potter wouldn't see Hermione Granger all summer, until the shopping trip to Diagon Alley. Hermione would also meet Ginny for the first time on that selfsame shopping trip, and, as a general rule, would see her as a shy, nervous girl who barely said ten words when Harry was in sight. In those timelines, Hermione and Ginny wouldn't become friends for several years.

In this particular timeline, however, Hermione's maternal grandmother broke her hip a fortnight before the Diagon Alley trip. It wasn't a bad break, as such things went, but Hermione's mother's two brothers had emigrated to New Zealand soon after graduating university and both had thriving businesses that they couldn't leave right away. Her sister, Hermione's Aunt Cleo, was working at a refugee camp hospital in Africa with Médecins Sans Frontières, and couldn't get away for weeks, until another surgeon could fly out from France. This left Hermione's parents as the only available family members, and even a tough, independent old lady like Gran Duggan had to admit that she needed some help in getting her house ready for her convalescence.

Considering that Hermione was still too young to be left alone at home, and that sitting round in hospital waiting rooms and such wouldn't make a pleasant experience for her, her parents asked her if she might like to stay with a school friend. And Hermione, after a bit of thought, decided to ask Ron's family.

After all, who else would she ask? She was friendly enough with Parvati and Lavender, but they weren't close. If Harry'd had a family who'd be open to guests, she would have asked them, but she knew better.

Besides, Harry was staying with the Weasleys as well. It would be so lovely to see him. She hoped he'd had a happy summer. The single letter he'd sent since he'd gone to stay at the Weasleys suggested that things were good there. He'd made friends with Ron's little sister, Ginny. That made Hermione happy, of course. Harry deserved to have many friends. She wasn't jealous. Not in the slightest. Hermione had long ago decided that she'd not even think about romance until she went up to Oxford or Cambridge. Boys, she understood, simply didn't grow up enough to be worth having until they'd left school.

Besides that, Harry, who was younger than Hermione, and Ginny, who was only eleven, would only be friends. They were too young to be anything more. Ron would stop them sneaking off to snog behind the haystack, even if they were old enough to be interested in snogging. And it wasn't as if Mrs. Weasley would let them sleep together or something, right? They would only be staying in the same house, of course, with Harry presumably sleeping in Ron's room. Just as Hermione would be staying in the same house, and presumably sleeping in Ginny's room. Which wouldn't, of course, mean that she had any romantic designs on Harry, either.

Her mother was able to drive past Ottery St. Catchpole without going very far out of her way. The Weasley house was just outside the village. "Are you sure this is it, Hermione?" Lydia Granger said as they pulled up to what she saw as a tiny cottage. "It doesn't look nearly big enough for a family of nine..."

"I think they have it charmed so it's not obvious how big it is, Mum," Hermione said. "Ron says it's all built up with magic, so the house might look a bit... unsteady, if one didn't know how it was held up."

"Right," Lydia said. "Are you sure...?"

"Yes, Mother. Mrs. Weasley said I was welcome. They're lovely people, really."

"All right."

"Hullo!" someone called. It was a small red-headed girl, who was nearly dragging Harry by the hand.

"Hullo, Harry," Hermione called.

"Hullo, Hermione," he replied. "This is Ginny Weasley. Ron and the rest should be somewhere behind."

Hermione got out the car. Ginny's only got Harry by the hand because she's excited and she wanted him to move faster. She might just as easily be tugging one of her own brothers about.

Harry looked well. His clothes fit him much better than they had before, and the stitches and patches were almost invisible, as if somebody who was very good at tailoring and mending spells, presumably Mrs. Weasley, had worked them over. That was delightful, of course.

Ginny gave Harry a little push towards Hermione, so swiftly that if she'd not been watching them closely she'd never have noticed. He held out his hand. Hermione couldn't resist. She hugged him.

She was afraid, for a moment. What would her mother think? What would Harry think? Worst of all, what would Ginny think? She watched the girl, over Harry's shoulder. To her surprise, she was grinning, as if she were absolutely delighted to see another girl hugging Harry. They're friends, that's all. We're all of us far too young for romance. I'm glad Ginny understands that. Maybe she'll be as good a friend as Harry and Ron are. It would be nice to be real friends with a girl. I've never had that before, not really, not since I was small, before it became obvious how different I was to everyone else.

Harry hugged her back, with hardly any hesitation at all. He was less shy than he had been. That was all to the good, of course. They'd just let each other go when Ron and the rest came into view.

"Could we take your suitcase, Hermione?" Harry said.

"Well, if you'd not mind. But first... this is my mother, Lydia Granger."

She made the introductions, to Ron and the twins as well. She made a point of hugging Ron, just so no-one would think she had unseemly designs on Harry. He put his arms loosely round her back and stiffened his torso, as if some embarrassing maiden aunt had hugged him in front of his friends, rather than hugging her back the way Harry had.

Ginny, to her surprise, hugged her. "I've heard so much about you," she said, "that I almost feel as if I'd already met you. It's delightful to finally meet you for real."

Mrs. Weasley came out as well, and invited Hermione's mother in for a cool drink and a bite to eat. "I'm so sorry," Lydia said, "but I've a meeting scheduled with my mother's doctors, and I really must be on my way. I wish I could stay for a bit, but I simply can't."

"I understand," Mrs. Weasley said. "Well, hopefully we'll get a chance to chat when the children go shopping for their school things."

"Indeed," Lydia said. "Goodbye, Hermione. Don't forget to clean your teeth."

"I'll not, Mum," Hermione said.

A few minutes later, they were eating cold ham, boiled eggs, and salad round the Weasleys' kitchen table. Ron sat on one side of her, and Harry on the other, with Ginny beyond him. They seemed... very comfortable with each other. As if Ginny'd adopted Harry as another brother, of course. Not that they couldn't be more, someday, when they were eighteen or twenty and properly grown up, but for now it would be better if Ginny had the same purely Platonic relationship with Harry that Hermione did. Just as it would be better if Hermione stuck to that same purely Platonic relationship.

She'd expected that Ron would pull Harry away for the rest of the afternoon, to fly or talk about Quidditch or something, and that she'd be left to sit with Ginny and try to find something to talk about. But much to her surprise and delight, she found herself spending the day with all three of them. They rambled down to the river and watched the birds, they played a slow, lazy game of tag, they played nine-men's-morris with pebbles on a board scratched into the dirt, and, all the while, they talked. They even went in the garden, caught the funny, ugly little garden gnomes that Hermione had only seen as pictures in books before, and threw them as far away as they could throw them. That would have bothered her, but all the books did say they were horrible pests, and she could see for herself that the creatures weren't hurt by being thrown.

By the end of the day Hermione knew that she liked Ginny Weasley. The younger girl had read many of the same books that Hermione herself loved, Black Beauty and Puck of Pook's Hill and even Narnia, as well as a stack of Wizarding stories that Ron would have never thought to tell Hermione about.

That evening after dinner, Mrs. Weasley told her something that shocked her. "Harry's been kipping with Ginny, so I thought I'd put you in with Ron. I'll cast a Bundling Charm, of course, so it's perfectly proper. I hope you don't mind--you're too young to start stepping out, of course, but it's not a bad idea to get to know each other a bit better."

"But... Mrs. Weasley... he's a boy, and I'm a girl."

"Yes, dear. That's why we have Bundling Charms. I know you're good children, and wouldn't do anything wrong, anyhow, but the Bundling Charm makes it so neither of you will be tempted. It gives you a chance to get closer to each other, and be better friends, without any pressure. Mr. Weasley and I slept under one every holiday from our Fourth Year until we married, and it was perfectly lovely."

"Oh. Umm... how does it work?"

"It's sort of like a Notice-Me-Not Charm, but focussed on an idea rather than an object. Even if you were, well, older, you'd simply not think about anything... naughty. You'd get distracted from it if you tried to. The Charm lets you talk, and hug each other, and, maybe, if you want to, give each other a light kiss or two, but that's it. So... is it all right?"

"Harry and Ginny have been sleeping... like that?"

"Yes. Sleeping like angels. They've become such good friends. Ginny was so nervous about Harry she could barely talk to him for the first day he was here. If you'd rather not, I understand--we can put Harry on the camp bed in Ron's room, and I'm sure you and Ginny will be fine together..."

"Oh, that's all right, Mrs. Weasley. I wouldn't want to put Harry out of a place where he's comfortable. He deserves his rest. I'll be fine."

"Oh, thank you, my dear. I'm sure you and Ron will get on just as well as Harry and Ginny have."

Ron, however, was less than pleased when he found out. "Mum! Do I have to?"

"It's only polite, Ron. Look at how well Harry and Ginny are getting on."

"Yeah, sure. But really, Mum, I need my sleep. Hermione's just going to talk about our lessons or something all night."

"I'll cast an expansion charm on your bed, so you and Hermione will have plenty of room. You don't have to talk to your friend, if you don't want to."

"Fine. But why can't she sleep with Harry and Ginny? I'd feel guilty if it were anybody else, but Harry doesn't seem to mind girls, for some reason."

The twins were shaking with barely suppressed laughter. Percy had gone up early, saying he needed to read another volume of Proceedings of the Wizengamot. Hermione didn't dare look at Harry and Ginny. Mrs. Weasley's face turned red. "Ronald. You will be polite to our guest. Give Hermione a chance. Harry and Ginny were nervous at first, and look how well they're getting along now."

Ron sighed. "All right, Mum. Let me get my pyjamas and I'll change in the bathroom, Hermione."

Mrs. Weasley went to expand the bed, and the twins went to their room. Hermione was left with Ginny and Harry. "Umm... have a good night." She tried not to stare at their joined hands. Would she and Ron be so friendly, tomorrow night?

"Good night, Hermione," Harry said. He looked as if he wanted to say something more, but couldn't find the words.

"Good night, Hermione," Ginny said. "I'm sorry my brother's being such a git."

"I'm sorry as well," Harry said. "You know how he is. He just needs a chance to calm down. I'm sure he'll be fine with it before you go to sleep tonight, and in the morning he'll be acting like it was his idea in the first place."

"Right," Hermione said. "Well, good night. Sleep well."

Ron was sitting on his bed when Hermione came up from the bathroom in her pyjamas. Mrs. Weasley's expansion charm had grown the bed to the point it took up most of the room. It was nearly the size of her parents' bed, more than big enough that two twelve-year-olds could share it without touching each other. Harry and Ginny, she imagined, probably slept nestled together, the way her parents did. Would Hermione and Ron be that comfortable together? Would the Bundling Charm make it easier? She visualised a wave of calmness travelling through her body. Was it the charm, or was only her imagination?

"I'm sorry, Hermione," Ron said. Perhaps the charm was working.

"It's all right, Ron. I know it must have been a bit of a shock."

"Really, I don't know what Mum's thinking. Poor Harry has to put up with my sister, and you and I've got to kip together. It's just not fair. I mean, my sister would talk your ear off as well, but I'm sure it's easier for girls, somehow. You even managed to pretend to be interested in that stupid horse book."

"Actually, Ron, I loved Black Beauty."

"Right. Well, let's try to sleep." He used his finger to draw an imaginary line down the middle of the bed. "This side's mine, that's yours. Try not to grab onto me or something, okay? That would just be too weird."

Hermione shook her head. Apparently the wave of calm had been only her imagination. "Right, Ronald. I managed to share a bed smaller than this with my cousin Amelia for a fortnight last summer, so I'm sure we'll get by. Just don't you grab onto me."

Ron shuddered. "Never fear. I don't know what Ginny's done to Harry, to make him put up with her always hugging him and holding his hand and all that."

"Perhaps he likes her, and she likes him? After all, I like hugging Harry just fine."

Ron rolled his eyes and blew out the candle. "Night, Hermione," he muttered, and laid his head on his pillow, turning away from her.

She turned away from him and closed her eyes. I'll sleep in a minute. I just need to count a few sheep...

Five hundred imaginary sheep later, she was still awake. Ron, on the other hand, had begun to snore. He'd rolled on his back. His hand flopped towards her. As soon as his fingertips brushed her back, he rolled back away. As the night went on, he began to pull at the bedclothes. At least he stopped snoring when he was on his side, but he'd taken three quarters of the duvet with him. It was a cool summer night, and her toes began to feel as if they were buried in crushed ice. She tried to take her share of the duvet back, but he muttered something that sounded like "Stoppit, Gred," and pulled even more of it away.

My toes aren't really cold. It's only a sensation. Ron's noises aren't really annoying. They're only sounds. I will sleep, she told herself, pretending she was the warrior heroine of a fantasy or science fiction novel, conquering both herself and all she surveyed by the sheer force of her will.

Ron rolled again, wrapping himself in all of the duvet but one corner that Hermione held onto with both hands. Somehow he'd got himself on his back, at the very edge of the bed, and he was snoring again as well.

Hermione got up, tiptoed to the door, and gently eased it open. I'll have a drink of water, and when I come back Ron will have fallen into a quiet slumber. I'll put on a jumper and a pair of socks, and cover my head with my dressing gown, and then I'll fall asleep.

When she left the bathroom, Ginny was standing by the door. "I'm sorry, Ginny," she whispered. "I didn't know you needed the bathroom."

"Don't worry," she whispered back, "I just wanted a drink of water. So... you can't sleep?"

"Well... it's difficult. I'm not used to sleeping with anyone else."

"I wasn't, either. But Harry's so nice, and so warm," Ginny said. "I'm sorry my brother's not."

"It's all right. He's just... well, he snores, and he's taken most of the duvet, and..."

"Oh, Hermione, I'm sorry," Ginny said. "If you want... we've got room."

"I wouldn't want to put Harry out of bed. Or you, either."

"You wouldn't. I've a big bed, and Harry and I sleep close to each other. There's more than enough room."

"That can't be... proper."

"There's a Bundling Charm, remember? And we're only kids, all three of us. Harry's ever so fond of you, Hermione. He wouldn't want you to be up all night, without any bedclothes over you, and with Ron snoring in your ear. Come to bed with us, please?"

"I shouldn't. I really shouldn't."

"Yes, you should. You're our guest, Hermione. You're Harry's friend, and I hope you're mine as well. Please?"

"All right."

"Just a mo, then." Ginny drank her little glass of water, and seized Hermione's hand as if it were Harry's. "Come along."

Feeling vaguely bemused, and vaguely confused, and extremely tired, Hermione followed her to her door. Ginny slipped open the door, and all but pulled her inside. "Hey," Harry said softly.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Ginny said, "I woke up and my mouth was a little dry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"'S all right, Gin," he said.

"Umm... I found Hermione in the hall. She can't sleep."

"Ron's an awful snorer, isn't he?" Harry said. "Well, I'm used to it from the dorms. I'll go and sleep on his floor, and the two of you can have the bed here."

"Oh, Harry, I can't do that to you," Hermione said. "Really, I'll go back to Ron's room. We'll be fine."

Ginny sighed. "There's room for all three of us right here. Budge over, Harry. Hermione and I are getting in, aren't we, Hermione?"

"Umm... okay," Hermione said. There didn't seem to be any resisting Ginny.

"Where would you like to sleep, Hermione? I've been sleeping in front of Harry, but if you'd like you could sleep there and I'll be fine behind him. Or, of course, I could sleep between the two of you, or you between the two of us."

"You don't have to move. I'll just take a little bit of the bed, and you two can do whatever you're comfortable with..."

Ginny took her hand in hers. "You're cold, Hermione. Harry's a very good source of warmth."

"Do... do you truly not mind?"

"Of course not," Harry said. "If it's okay with Ginny, it's fine with me."

"All right, then," Hermione said. "I'll just..."

"Wait," Ginny said. "We've not said good night properly yet."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Harry and I always hug and kiss each other's cheek before we go to sleep. If you're sleeping with us, we should hug and kiss you as well."

"Umm... that's okay."

"Here," Ginny said, "I'll go first." She hugged Hermione, and kissed her softly on the cheek. Before Hermione could even think about it, she found herself hugging Ginny and kissing her cheek in return.

It felt very nice. As did Harry's hug and cheek-kiss. And watching in the dimness as Harry and Ginny embraced and kissed each other was very nice as well.

In bed, under the duvet, she spooned up against Harry's back. It should have felt awkward, she knew, but instead it felt very natural, somehow. She slipped one arm under his neck, and put the other arm over his body. Her hand went between Harry's stomach and Ginny's back. Her last dim thought, as she fell asleep, was that she had a new favourite Weasley. Ron's still my friend, of course, but Ginny's so generous, so kind... and so huggable.

#

Molly knocked at Ginny and Harry's door. It was silly, but she'd already started thinking of it that way. The two got on so well together. If this were my Gran's gran's time, I suppose I'd suggest that Arthur ask Harry's family about a betrothal contract. But it's just as well we don't do things like that anymore. They're very good friends. If they want to be more than friends, a few years from now, they can work it out for themselves. She hoped Ron and Hermione would get on equally well.

Softly, she opened the door. There wasn't any real need for the pause, of course. If the children were a little older, the Bundling Charm would allow them to exchange a few gentle kisses lip-to-lip, but the idea would never occur to them, right now.

There was something funny about the sausage roll of duvet on the bed. It was bigger, as if the children had grown overnight. And why was there brown hair as well as black and red?

"Good morning, Mum," Ginny said.

"Good morning, Mrs. Weasley," Harry and Hermione said in chorus. Oh, that was it. Wait. Hermione's in bed with them? Am I still asleep, and dreaming a very strange dream?

"Hermione couldn't sleep, Mum. Harry and I had room, so I brought her in with us. I couldn't leave a guest to stay awake all night, could I?"

"No, I suppose you couldn't," Molly said. "Well, as long as you're all three happy with it."

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley," Hermione said.

"I am," Harry said.

"I'll be starting breakfast," Molly said. "I'll see you in a few minutes, children." She shut the door. Well, they're young yet. Ginny's so young that she's thinking of Harry as simply a friend, just the way she thinks of Luna, and Harry's willing to go along with it. That's good, really. By the time she's ready to think of him as a boyfriend, they'll be completely comfortable with each other. There'll be no pressure, simply two people who've grown up together realising they've fallen in love whilst they were looking the other way.

She went on to Ron's room. No need to be angry with him, she reminded herself. It's not his fault that he snores and sleeps so restlessly. We'll simply forget all about tonight, even if he and Hermione do start stepping out together in a few years. After their honeymoon, of course, I'll ask them if they remember the first night they shared a bed, just to see them blush.

She knocked at the door. "Good morning, Ron!"

He turned over, wrapped up in the duvet, the sheet halfway pulled off the mattress. "Morning, Mum. I had the worst time falling asleep. Hermione kept moving. Umm... sorry, Hermione." Seeing that she wasn't on the opposite side of his bed, he looked down at the floor, as if she might have ended up sleeping there.

"Hermione," Molly said, "couldn't sleep. She ended up sharing with your sister and Harry."

"Oh."

"It's not your fault, Ron. I'm sure you'll sleep less restlessly as you grow up."

"Poor Harry," Ron said. "Having to sleep with two girls... I suppose I owe him one, don't I?"

Molly bit her lip to keep herself from laughing. I really don't need to explain why what Ron said is so funny, not to any of the children. "I don't think he minds, Ron. He seems to think of Hermione and Ginny as very good friends."

"I suppose they are both pretty all right, for being girls," Ron said.

"That's very mature of you, Ron. Now, try not to tell Harry how sorry you are for him. Your sister and Hermione don't need to be embarrassed."

"Right, Mum."

#

Ginny looked at Harry and Hermione. Her bedmates. Their hair was mussed. One of Harry's pyjama buttons was broken. And Ginny had never seen anything as wonderful as the two of them in all her life. Her heart almost felt as if it might burst with affection for them. She'd been a little worried that adding Hermione might make it harder to sleep, but instead it was almost more wonderful than sleeping with Harry alone. Hermione had made gentle little noises, almost crooning, as she was settling down for the night, and her hand had felt nice between Ginny's back and Harry's stomach. Ginny was already hoping that Harry and Hermione could come home with her at the Christmas holidays; the three of them would sleep warm together on even the coldest December night. Vague, pleasant fantasies of the years ahead flitted through her mind, visions of an older self walking in exotic foreign streets with an older Harry and Hermione.

Ginny had lived a sheltered life. In a sense, this was fortunate for her. A girl who had known more of the wider world might have wondered why she so enjoyed sleeping with her brother's two best friends, might have questioned why she was thinking of a boy and a girl in almost exactly the same fashion. A girl who'd heard whispers about people called 'perverts' and their unconventional relationships might have worried that she was becoming one of those perverts, herself. Even a girl raised by liberal, tolerant parents might worry about actually growing up to be a bisexual woman with both a boyfriend and a girlfriend.

All Ginny knew was that she liked Harry and Hermione a great deal. She had vague fantasies of marriage, of course, as something she might do with Harry, someday when they were old, twenty-one or twenty-three or something like that. The fact that Hermione had somehow joined them in those fantasies didn't seem particularly important. They were friends, and they were comfortable sharing a bed, so it was only natural that they'd spend their lives together. The exact form such a shared life might take didn't seem a matter for particular concern, at the moment. Especially when there were more important things to think about, such as good morning hugs and kisses and the delicious scent of bacon frying downstairs.

Chapter Text

Harry Potter and the Summer of the Bundling Charm, part 2
A Harry Potter fanfic
By Andrew yclept Aelfwine

Rating: PG. 6,100 words
***
The characters and situations of the Harry Potter series are copyright J.K. Rowling. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.
***

It turned out to be a rainy day, too rainy to spend much time outdoors. Ron wanted to play chess after breakfast, and proceeded to beat both Harry and Hermione. Ginny fought him to a draw, which didn't much please him, so he tried to talk first Harry and then Hermione into a rematch. When they begged off, Ron sulked for a few minutes before beginning a single hand game, working through a problem from an old book off the family shelves.

The sounds of Ron and the chessmen arguing with each other began to get annoying, so Harry and Hermione and Ginny slipped off to the barn. They huddled together under an old umbrella from the hall closet for the trip across the farmyard, and inside the barn they sat in the hayloft, thigh to thigh to thigh despite the fact there was plenty of space. Hermione'd brought a stack of books, but rather than read separately the threesome decided to leaf through one together, a book about the Amazon jungle.

One picture showed a boa constrictor, even bigger than the one Harry remembered from before first year. "I met one of these, once," he said. "In a zoo, before I got my Hogwarts letter. He was in a cage with a glass front, and people kept tapping on the glass to make him move. They were being awful, and my cousin and his friend Piers were the worst, of course.

"He told me he'd been born in the zoo and he hadn't ever been to Brasil where his family were from. I felt sorry for him, and I suppose I had a burst of accidental magic, although I didn't know what it was back then. The glass disappeared, and Dudley got a mortal fright. I got locked in the cupboard for a week, but I reckon it was worth it. I just hope that snake got safely home, and found some friends there; he was nice."

Ginny and Hermione were gazing wide-eyed at him. "What's wrong?"

"Harry," Hermione said, "you can talk to snakes?"

"Seems like I can, although I've never had many chances. I'd wondered if it might be something all magical folk could do." Their reaction made him think this wasn't so, and he felt a sudden sharp fear in his gut. Was there something wrong with him? Would Ginny and Hermione reject him, now they knew?

"Not really, Harry," Ginny said. The girls exchanged a quick glance, and each took one of his hands, which made him feel infinitely better.

"The thing is," Hermione said, "there's only been one Wizard in Britain for a century or more who could talk to snakes--it's called Parseltongue, by the way, and a person who can do it is called a Parselmouth. At least there was only one Wizard who admitted he could. And that was You-Know-Who."

"The stories say that Salazar Slytherin could," Ginny said. "A lot of people say that all Parselmouths are Dark. Obviously they're wrong, but that's what they say."

"Oh."

"Harry," Hermione said softly, "Ginny and I know you're not evil in any way. The sweetest, bravest wizard I've ever met, the wizard who charged in and saved a bossy girl he barely knew from a twelve-foot troll--"

"The wizard who's been holding me all night in his arms, and giving me the best sleep I've ever had--"

"The wizard who slept all last night in my arms, and kept me warm and happy--"

"Can't possibly be Dark. Ever. In any way. Even if he can talk to snakes, and make friends with them, and hope they're okay."

"But it might be wise not to let on to other people that you're a Parselmouth." The girls were talking the way the twins sometimes did, as if each knew what the other was thinking. Harry didn't know why, but it made him feel almost ridiculously happy. Or maybe that was because of the warm bodies pressed up against each side of him, and the tight grips on each of his hands.

"Even my brother. At least not for a while. He'd probably not hold it against you in the end, but you know how silly he can be. And, unlike us, he's not slept with you. And I refuse to let him have you for even a night." Ginny grinned and kissed Harry's cheek.

"Thanks," Harry said. "Ron's a good bloke, but it's hard enough sharing a dorm with him. He's got a terrible snore."

"Tell me about it," Hermione said. "You and Ginny are ever so much nicer. We'd never do that to you, Harry. Parseltongue and all, we're keeping you for ourselves." She kissed his cheek.

Hermione carefully laid the book aside, and the three of them cuddled together on the hay. It was a little scratchy, and the hay smelled a little musty, but Harry didn't care. He had two girls in his arms. He didn't entirely know why he liked that fact so much, but he didn't really care. Ginny and Hermione had somehow become his best friends. Not that Ron wasn't still a good friend, but the girls... he could talk to them, and tell them things, and they'd listen, and tell him things in return.

Besides that, they were warm and they smelled nice. He had a sneaking suspicion that this all might have something to do with things like marriage and children and the strange pictures and confusing explanations in the sex classes at primary school. He didn't particularly want to think about it, especially when he considered that it might also be related to the pictures of girls without clothes on in that magazine Dudley had hidden in the smallest bedroom after he and Piers got bored with snickering over it.

Fortunately, he had his two best friends to distract him. Ginny began tickling him. "Help me, Hermione," he said, laughing.

She rose up on one elbow, grinning down at him. "Actually, Harry, I think I'd do better to help Ginny instead. You've a delightful laugh, and I don't get to hear it nearly often enou--eeep!" Ginny began tickling Hermione with the hand that wasn't tickling Harry. Not knowing what else to do, he began tickling both girls. Their giggles convinced him he'd made exactly the right decision.

Much later, when they were lying still again, Hermione got her thoughtful look on her face. "You know, Harry, I've a book or two about snakes. It might do you good to know more about them, if you can talk to them. You never know when you might need to tell a grass snake from a smooth snake."

Ron would have groaned and said something about swottiness and it being summer, but Ginny got her own thoughtful look. "You know, Harry, I think our Hermione's got a point."

"If you both think it," Harry said, "then I know I need to read up on snakes. Could I borrow one of your books, Hermione?"

"Of course, Harry. Always. And I'll try to read up on Parseltongue. I don't think there are many books about it, but there might be something. And there were a couple of hints in Hogwarts, A History that maybe in some other countries they don't think of Parselmouths as being evil at all. I'm not saying we should necessarily move to Cambodia or India or West Africa when we grow up, but it might be good to know more about their cultures, just in case. Especially if they might give us some ideas about things you can do with it, besides finding out where the tastiest mice live, or whatever it is that snakes like to chat about."

"Yes," Harry said. "Even at the Dursleys', I was never hungry enough to try eating mice."

He didn't know why both girls started crying when he said that, but he hugged them and stroked their hair and murmured soft words in their ears and wiped their eyes with his handkerchief. "I'm sorry I've only the one handkerchief," he said at last.

"Don't be, Harry," Hermione said. "I like sharing with Ginny. That is, if you don't mind, Ginny?"

"I really like sharing with you, Hermione." They smiled at each other, and somehow Harry knew that all was right with the world.

"Harry? Ginny? Hermione? Mum says it's time for lunch!" Ron called from the barn door. The threesome gave each other a final squeeze and got ready to climb down the ladder.

"Wait, Ginny," Hermione said, "there's a piece of hay in your hair." She gently removed it; Harry couldn't help but notice that her fingers seemed to linger on the other girl's hair. It was nice how much they liked each other. He didn't know what he would have done if they hadn't.

"You've some as well, Hermione," he said. "Here." For some reason he was worried he might pull on her hair and hurt her, but she seemed to like the contact.

"And there's a piece stuck in your collar, Harry," Ginny said. "Stay still for a moment." It did feel nice, the way Ginny's fingers brushed against the back of his neck.

"Are you coming? Mum says we can't eat till you three are at the table."

"Yes, Ron," Ginny called, "we're coming." She grinned at Harry and Hermione. "Just keep your shirt on, all right?"

"Why would I take my shirt off? Wait... that doesn't mean you've been taking yours off, does it?"

"No, Ron," Hermione said, climbing down the ladder. "Why would we have done?"

"I don't know," he said. "Some weird girly thing that you might want to torment Harry with? I once heard Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson say something to Fred and George about how they and Alicia Spinnet were going topless in their dorm, and it sure sounded like they were trying to torture the twins with the way they said it."

"Why would we want to torment Harry?" Ginny said. "I don't think we'll be old enough for torturing him for... how many years, do you think, Hermione?"

"Don't answer her, Hermione, please?" Ron said.

"Of course not, Ron. It's not as if we want to torture you."

"Thank Merlin," Ron said. "Now come on, I'm starved."

#

After breakfast a few mornings later, they walked out into the vegetable patch. Ginny took off her shoes first. "I like the feeling of the ground under my feet," she said, with a shy little smile. Harry wasn't sure why he liked the look of her little bare white toes in the grass so much, but he did. He sat down and began to take his own shoes off. "You don't have to," Ginny said.

"I'd like to try it, myself," he said. "I wasn't allowed to go barefoot outside, cos if I did Aunt Petunia would always say I was trying to make people think they were denying me shoes."

Hermione looked torn. "Umm... my grandfather was a chiropodist and thought that not wearing shoes was bad for people's feet, and my dad doesn't like it if I go barefoot anywhere but in the house or on the sand at the beach. But I really sort of like not wearing shoes."

"Your father's not here," Ginny said. "You don't have to take them off, but you're welcome to do, if you'd like to." Hermione smiled at her, and took off her shoes. Harry liked that. Her toes were just as nice to look at as Ginny's. They were suntanned, and he remembered her saying she and her parents had gone on a week's beach holiday shortly after she came home from Hogwarts.

The threesome walked carefully between the rows of carrots and potatoes and funny Wizarding vegetables and herbs, digging their toes into the cool soft slightly damp earth. When they saw weeds, they pulled them, but mostly they talked and looked for signs of rabbits or other animals that might be eating the plants.

"What's that?" Hermione said, pointing at a cabbage plant.

"I don't know," Harry said. "I didn't see it."

"It was sort of a little shimmering thing. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Maybe it was nothing."

"It might've been a cabbage fairy," Ginny said.

"Oh," Harry said, not sure what she was talking about.

"Right," Hermione said, "I've read about them. They like to steal cabbages and sprouts, don't they?"

"Yes," Ginny said. "They don't really eat them, but Mum says they squeeze the juices out and drink them and it makes them act silly. It's sort of like catnip for cats or something."

Harry was watching the cabbages. After a moment, he saw a shimmer, and realised it was a little winged person-looking thing, about the size of the plastic action figures Dudley had liked to shoot at with his air rifle before he sat on and broke it. "I think it's come back," he whispered, pointing. They watched the fairy as it sniffed at the cabbages. It must have not thought they were ready yet, because it flew away without taking any.

"I suppose it's not so bad, if it's only one of them," Hermione said. "It was only a little thing, after all."

"The problem is," Ginny said, "that if there's one it'll have a hundred friends or more, and they'll take all of our cabbages and go on a bender. We'd better tell Mum so she can mix up some repellent."

"Okay," Harry said.

"It doesn't hurt them, does it?" Hermione said. "I thought that fairy was sort of cute."

"Don't worry," Ginny said. "It just makes the cabbages smell funny, so they'll not want them."

They washed the dirt off their feet with the hosepipe and went inside to tell Mrs. Weasley.

"Well," she said, "let's have a look and see what Gilderoy Lockhart says about cabbage fairies. He's just the wizard for household charms and potions." She took out a large book with the face of a smiling, blond-haired man on its cover. Harry didn't think he'd seen anyone's teeth shine that brightly before; it was as if they'd been taken from the man's mouth, polished with glass cleaner, and put back in just before the photograph was taken.

"Mum thinks the world of him," Ginny whispered in Harry's ear, "but it sounds to me like everything in that book is just the same stuff that she always used to say she did cos her Mum or her Gran told her about it."

"Oh, he's brilliant," Hermione said. "I've read all of his books about his adventures, and I've been counting the days till Magical Me comes out. He's such a hero--the Dark Arts Defence League made him a member without him going through their usual sequence of scholar and provost and master or anything. Why, he's been to every country in the world fighting Dark wizards and Dark creatures. And he writes about household magic as well?"

Harry and Ginny looked at each other, not knowing what to say. Why's Hermione talking about him like that? Harry thought. Does she fancy him or something? He didn't know why the thought made him feel so tense and awkward in his stomach.

"He does, my dear. I don't know where he finds all the time when he's already so busy protecting people, but I suppose he's simply a genius. Oh, interesting! He says we should mix a quart of vinegar with half an ounce of powdered elfwort and an ounce of rue and just a spoonful of brewed tea to keep the fairies away from the cabbages. It's much like my Aunt Adele's old recipe, but she only used a quarter-ounce of elfwort and she didn't put any rue in. Mr. Lockhart must have found that twice as much elfwort was four times as effective. And maybe the rue makes it last longer?"

"Or maybe his cousin owns an herb farm," Harry whispered in Ginny's ear. She giggled. Mrs. Weasley gave them a sharp glance, but what hurt was the fact that Hermione gave them one as well.

A few minutes later, they were back in the garden with a spray bottle full of the mixture. "I'm ever so looking forward to seeing Gilderoy Lockhart's formula do its work," Hermione said. Harry didn't know how to reply to that. Starting at the north, they surrounded the cabbage patch with a circle of protective solution before stepping inside to spray the spot where they'd first seen the cabbage fairy.

Minutes later, a horde of the little shimmery pests descended on the patch. "This can't be right," Hermione said, "Mr. Lockhart's book said they'd stay at least three furlongs away from now until Martinmas!"

"Merlin," Ginny said, "Mum will be in a rage. Shoo! you stupid beast!" she said, flinging a clod at the nearest fairy and knocking it to the ground. The fairy hopped back into the air and flew over to make a rude gesture at the threesome before darting back to the cabbage patch and pulling almost a whole leaf loose. Two more of its compatriots descended, and soon there was an angry little fairy brawl underway.

"At least they're spending as much time fighting each other as they are taking cabbage," Harry said.

"Mum!" Ginny called. "I think we need a wand over here!"

Mrs. Weasley had been tending a planter full of her prize snapdragons. "Is it an angry knarl?" she said. "Or has one of Mr. Norrington's sheep got loose again?"

"No, Mrs. Weasley," Harry said. "It's... the fairies are in an uproar."

"Good heavens! Did they realise you were spraying Lockhart's formula and decide to take what they could before you'd locked down the whole patch?"

"No, Mum," Ginny said. "We'd sprayed out the circle and we'd just got done marking out the spots where we'd seen the first fairy when they all showed up and started attacking."

Mrs. Weasley began casting freezing and stunning spells at the fairies, as swift and as accurate as one of the professional duellists they'd read about in Defence. "Did you start at the wrong--Stupefy!--cardinal point, dear?" she said, without turning her head away from the fairies. "Frigidus! The book said to start at the north, remember?"

"We started at the north, Mum."

"Well... perhaps the publisher didn't print the recipe that Mr. Lockhart wrote down," Hermione said.

"That could be it, my dear," Mrs. Weasley said. "I suppose it could be." She shook her head. The cabbage patch was littered with stunned and frozen fairies, and those still able to fly had given it up for a bad business and left. "Let's pick them up and put them outside the fence," she said. "They can fly away once the spells have worn off. And I'll mix up a batch of Aunt Adele's old recipe."

"Shouldn't we owl Mr. Lockhart to let him know that the publisher messed up his anti-fairy formula?" Hermione said.

"Oh, well, I'm sure he's off doing something very important right now, so there's no need to trouble him. I'm sure he'll realise in time to correct it in the next edition."

Hermione was quiet for the rest of the morning. After lunch, the threesome went to the haybarn to read. Hermione brought along her copy of Voyages With Vampires. "I'm still shocked that Mr. Lockhart's publisher misprinted his recipe," she said. "Could the printers have got it backwards with a recipe for cabbage fairy bait?"

"I suppose they could have done," Harry said. "So, what does Lockhart say about vampires?"

"Well... it's odd, actually. Three chapters back he said it's not true that vampires can't step on consecrated ground, and told how he actually got into a fight in the crypt of a cathedral in Spain with a vampire who was disguised as a monk, but now he's in Italy and up against a whole clan of vampires and he's sheltering in a church whilst he makes himself a set of stakes from a sweeping broom the sacristan has given him. The vampires are outside, waiting, but they can't come in because they're not able to enter into consecrated ground. It... it's almost as if he were simply making up the story as he went, and not even trying to be consistent about it." Hermione sounded puzzled, and a little hurt. Harry put his arm about her, and Ginny got on the other side of her and did the same thing. She put her arms about them and pulled them closer. He wasn't sure if she was trying not to cry. She leant her head onto his shoulder for a moment, and he nuzzled her bushy brown hair.

A few minutes later Hermione closed the book and put it down. She didn't mention Gilderoy Lockhart's name again, or read another of his books, until one morning at breakfast the letters came with their lists of books and supplies for the next year.

"Merlin's toenails," Ron said, "it looks like whoever's teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts this year is mad for Gilderoy Lockhart. You've not been keeping your new job a secret from us, Mum, have you?"

Mrs. Weasley blushed. "Of course not, Ron. Might I have a look?" He passed her his letter. "Well, they're exciting stories, but I'm not sure what I think of using them as the only set books for the subject."

"Well, I'm sure all the girls will be happy about it," Ron said. Harry couldn't help but think that Ron was using the same tone Aunt Petunia had used when he overheard her on the phone telling Uncle Vernon's sister Marge that she'd seen a long-haired rock star with a girlfriend on each arm having a meal at the nice French café in Little Whinging High Street where she and Mrs. Ireton from Number Six often went for lunch.

Hermione pursed her lips and said nothing. "Speak for yourself, Ronald," Ginny said.

"Huh? What'd I say?" Ron's eyes darted about the room, as if he thought that a group of girls from Hogwarts might have silently stepped into the kitchen, just in time to take offence.

"Brother dear," George, or perhaps it was Fred, said, "did you happen to forget that Hermione and our sister are at the table?"

"What? I wasn't talking about them."

"A proper gentlewizard," Percy said authoritatively, "does not speak a word against the fairer sex at any time, whether he means to refer to specific witches or to the germane gender in general." Much to Harry's surprise, there was a slight twinkle in Percy's eye.

Ron sputtered. "I was only talking about girls. You know, like Parvati and Lavender, or the Chasers. I didn't mean anything bad, either. You know what they're like. Flighty and giggly and stuff."

"Please pardon our Ronald," Fred, or perhaps it was George, said. "It's not his fault. I think he was given our family as a way of making up for the unfairness of our having two such gallant specimens as Fred and myself."

"I've always thought Aunt Muriel dropped him on his head, myself," the other twin said. "And wait, I thought you were Fred today."

After the dishes were cleared away, Ginny and Hermione took Harry by the hand and led him out into the farmyard. "You know we're girls, right?" Ginny said softly.

"I surely do," Harry said. "Pretty ones, at that."

They blushed so brightly that for a second he was sure he'd said exactly the wrong thing. Then they enveloped him in such a tight Hermione-and-Ginny hug that for a moment he could only barely breathe. He hugged them back, glad that he'd said exactly the right thing.

#

On the morning of the day before the Diagon Alley trip, they woke up a bit before Molly came round to knock on the door. Ginny woke first, and tried to stay very still, simply enjoying the warmth of her Harry and her Hermione. Hermione's hand was resting on Ginny's belly, right now. That happened, sometimes, and she liked it very much, the feeling that Hermione was pulling both of them closer to her. Ginny had decided a few nights ago that they should sometimes alternate, with Hermione in Harry's arms and herself at Harry's back. That also felt very nice. Last night she'd nearly suggested the girls should take turns in the middle as well, but the vague thought that there might be something odd about it had made her hold back.

After a while, she felt Hermione stir slightly, and then Harry. "I hope I didn't wake you," Hermione whispered softly.

"Of course not," Ginny whispered.

"Don't worry, love," Harry murmured. He'd begun calling both of them that, sometimes, when he was only barely awake. Ginny wondered if he was remembering how his father talked to his mother, but she wasn't going to ask him about that, not yet.

"That feels nice, Hermione," Harry whispered. He nuzzled the back of Ginny's neck, presumably copying whatever Hermione was doing to him.

"It does. So, I suppose I should nuzzle both of your necks, now."

"If you'd like to," Harry said.

"You don't have to," Hermione said, "but... I wouldn't mind." They'd decided early on that, as much as possible, every gesture of affection should be shared between the three of them. Hermione had seemed a little bit surprised at that, at first, but she'd quickly got over whatever it was that bothered her, and now she even sometimes gave Ginny the first hug or cheek kiss or back rub.

The threesome rolled over, and Ginny nuzzled the nape of Harry's neck. "And now it's my turn to nuzzle Hermione."

"Okay," Harry said. "Your turn in the middle, Hermione."

"Are you sure?" Hermione said.

"Yes, silly," Ginny said. They shifted about, trying not to let their limbs stick out from under the duvet. Ginny's shirt rode up slightly in the process, and a hand brushed her bare belly for a moment. She wasn't completely sure if it was Harry's or Hermione's, but, either way, it felt sort of nice.

And then she was in Hermione's arms, and the other girl was nuzzling the back of her neck. "Thanks," she whispered. After a minute, they rolled over so that Ginny could nuzzle Hermione. The faint exotic scent of the other girl's Muggle shampoo was very pleasant--Harry used the same hair potion that Ginny and the other Weasleys did, but Hermione had brought her own from home.

They shifted about again, and Harry ended up on his back with a girl reclining on each side of him, their heads on his shoulders. "I'm not sure if I could sleep this way," he said, "but it feels really nice."

"It does," Hermione whispered, and kissed his cheek. Ginny kissed the other cheek. Somehow, like a flock of birds moving as one, they decided that the girls needed to kiss each other with as little movement apart as possible, and for a brief instant all three sets of lips happened to meet in the middle. After the exchange of cheek kisses, they lay quiet for a long moment.

"I... I'm going to miss this so much," Hermione said. "I suppose my parents will want to take me home with them tomorrow."

"We're going to miss you an awful lot," Ginny said. "I wish we could go with you."

"I do as well, but... Muggles don't have Bundling Charms. I can't believe they'd let us all sleep together."

"Oh, right." Ginny's face felt hot. "I'm sorry for being so thick."

"You're not thick," Hermione whispered. "You're not thick at all, Ginny Weasley."

"Hermione's right," Harry said. The threesome hugged each other closer.

"Thanks," Ginny said. "I think I can convince Mum and Dad to let you both come home with me at Christmas hols. If you'd like to, that is..."

"I'd love to," Harry said.

"I can't think of anything I'd like better," Hermione said. "And... even if we can't all sleep together there, I could bring you home, sometime. We could at least get our hugs and kisses in during the day when my parents were at work."

"And you and Ginny could sleep together, right? Somebody once told me it was all right if girls slept in the same bed."

"Wouldn't you feel left out, Harry? I mean, if you couldn't be there in bed with us?"

"No, Hermione. I'd be happy that at least all of us didn't have to sleep alone."

Ginny couldn't think of anything strong enough to say in response to that, so she simply hugged Harry and Hermione as tightly as she could. To judge by the strength of her embrace, Hermione felt much the same. I've always wished I had a sister, Ginny thought, but I think I like having a Hermione even better.

They spent the rest of the day together, of course. Ron went rambling with them for a while, but he seemed to feel a bit out of place, and soon wandered off home, so he said, to ask the twins about something or other. Ginny would have felt slightly guilty for making him feel left out, but it wasn't as if he'd not been leaving her alone for years, and besides she was happier to be alone with her Harry and her Hermione. They all held hands for most of the walk, and finally wound up sitting together in the grass by the riverbank.

"It's a bit warm today, isn't it?" Hermione said. "If only we could go for a bathe."

"Hermione!" Ginny said, shocked out of her half-drowse. "That sounds lovely, but... Harry's a boy. It wouldn't be right to take off all our clothes together." The thought of it gave her a fluttery, tingly feeling in the pit of her stomach, which was actually sort of nice, but she'd not dare admit it, even to Harry and Hermione. Or perhaps that was especially to Harry and Hermione.

Hermione's face went red. "Umm... we'd wear swimming costumes, of course."

"Swimming costumes? What are those?" It sounded as if it were a roundabout way of saying "naked," like "in the dress of Eve before the Fall," but that couldn't be it, considering Hermione's reaction.

"You've never...? They're sort of stretchy things, like this." Her hands mimed a one-piece costume, from shoulder to hip and dipping to cover... down there. "Except for boys--they have sort of loose shorts, with no shirts. Well, except on the Continent--lots of them wear something that's more like underpants."

"Oh." Ginny didn't know what to think. She'd thought about going bathing with Hermione, just the way she did with Luna, but she'd not asked her, since Harry couldn't go with them and it just didn't seem fair. The thought of running about in front of Harry and Hermione wearing nothing but a stretchy thing that would show her figure, even if she didn't have much of one yet, and leave her legs and arms all bare was still sort of intimidating, but she was sure that she could get used to it. And the thought of Harry in nothing but shorts was really kind of nice.

If only she had the money... but Merlin knew how expensive one of these swimming costumes might be, made of some exotic stretchy Muggle fabric that probably took lots and lots of electricity and plastic to make it. "Umm... I don't think we have things like that in the Wizarding world." I suppose it's just as likely that Mum thinks they're a waste of money, but we'll not get into that.

"Oh. That would make sense, really. A hundred years ago in the Muggle world women bathed in these long dresses that had little weights in the hems so their skirts wouldn't billow up and men wore costumes that were a little bit like wool boiler suits with sleeves to their elbows and legs to their knees, but I think that before that people bathed without any clothes on at all and men and women didn't go bathing together."

"Umm... I never really learnt to swim very well," Harry said. "We had swimming lessons at school, but it always seemed to turn into Dudley and Piers trying to drown me when the teacher was looking the other way, so I... well, I learnt to sit very still in the changing room, and somehow the teachers never realised I wasn't in the pool."

"Someday, Harry," Hermione said, "we'll take you bathing. I'll get costumes for you and Ginny, and we'll teach you how to swim."

"You don't have to, Hermione," Ginny said. "I mean... swimming costumes must be expensive."

"You could always wear one of mine," Hermione said.

"Really? Would you mind?"

"Of course I wouldn't." Hermione hugged her, tightly. "You're... you're our Ginny."

"Thank you."

#

The next day they woke early. Mrs. Weasley actually caught them in their post-waking cuddle, but if she noticed that Harry was on his back with a girl on each side, their faces so close together that they were breathing in each others' breath, she didn't say anything.

After she closed the door, they sat up, arms still about each other. "Harry and I will send letters to you with Hedwig, every day," Ginny said. "We'll use different inks so you know who's said what. And then we'll be at Hogwarts, and we'll see each other every day, and I'm sure we'll be able to sneak off and hug each other. That is... if you and Harry don't mind spending time with a little Firsty. I understand if you'd rather not."

"Oh, Ginny," Hermione said, "you're not a little Firsty, you're our Ginny. I've never had a sister, so I suppose I don't really know, but I can't imagine how a sister could be any dearer to me than you are."

"Hermione's right," Harry said. "You're only a year younger, and you're... you're our best friend."

"Besides that," Hermione said, "I'm nearly ten months older than Harry, and you don't see me not wanting to spend time with him, do you?"

"Okay," Ginny said. "Thanks. I... you're both really special to me."

"And you both are to me," Harry said. "I... I never knew what it was like to really talk about things with anyone before."

"And you're both very special to me," Hermione said. "My two best friends in all the world." They hugged for another long moment, before letting each other go and setting about starting their day.

After a breakfast of bacon sandwiches and tea, everyone gathered round the fireplace. "We'll Floo to Diagon Alley," Mrs. Weasley said. "Everyone ready? All right, guests first." She held out a flowerpot full of a powdery substance.

"Umm, Mrs. Weasley," Harry said, "I've never done this before. And I don't think Hermione has done, either."

"I've read about it," Hermione said, "but no, I've not done it."

"Goodness," Mrs. Weasley said. "How'd you get to Diagon Alley last year, then?"

"I took the Underground with Hagrid," Harry said.

"My mum and dad had a conference in London," Hermione said, "so we took the train, and then we got a cab to the Leaky Cauldron. Professor McGonagall told us how to find the cab driver--I think he was a Squib, maybe."

"The Underground," Mr. Weasley said, "brilliant! Have they escapators? And I've always been curious about how they run trains under the ground--do the trains dig tunnels like rabbits? And a cab, even, Merlin bless."

"I'm sure Hermione's parents will be glad to tell you all about it, Arthur," Mrs. Weasley said. "So, then, lets be on our way. Ronald, why don't you go first?"

"Watch me, Harry," Ron said, "it's easy." He took a pinch of the powder and threw it on the fire, which flared up green. "Diagon Alley!" he said, and stepped into the flames and away.

"All right," Mrs. Weasley said, "that's the way it's done. It's not hard at all, really. Just mind you stop at the right grate--watch out for Ron and you'll be fine. Hermione, dear, would you like to go next, or would you rather Harry did?"

Hermione looked at him. "Would you mind, Harry?"

"All right," he said. He took the pinch of powder and threw it in. The green smoke made him cough. "D...Diagon Alley!" he called, and went whirling off into something that was more like a tunnel than anything else, whipping past other fireplaces, getting brief glimpses of everyday life in Wizarding houses: a woman feeding spoonfuls of oatmeal to a baby in a high chair, a little girl playing with a brown and white dog, a man with long wild red hair kissing a blonde centaur girl...

Chapter Text

Harry Potter and the Summer of the Bundling Charm, part 3
A Harry Potter fanfic
By Andrew yclept Aelfwine

Rating: PG. 8400 words.
***
The characters and situations of the Harry Potter series are copyright J.K. Rowling. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.
***

The bacon sandwiches were churning in Harry's stomach, as if each rasher had magically become a tiny and very angry pig, and they were simultaneously fighting with each other and trying to escape. He really didn't want to think what might happen if he were sick here in this mad place, what with the speed and the tossing and turning. He tried to spot Ron amongst the scenes flashing past him, but it was useless. He hoped Hermione and Ginny would have a better trip than he was having.

At last he fell out a grate, onto the flagstones of a hearth, flat on his face. The impact broke his glasses and left him stunned for a moment, but painful experience had taught him to pause a bare instant after falling, to be sure nothing was broken or sprained, and then to spring up as swiftly as he was able. He grabbed the broken glasses and held them to his face, looking about. It seemed to be a shop, but it wasn't any shop he recognised from Diagon Alley. He didn't think it was even one of the ones he'd seen from outside, but never gone in. The air felt heavy, and smelt of dust and age, with hints of something more unpleasant lying just beneath. There were display cases made of glass and dark wood; in one of them he saw a thing that looked a bit like the picture of a mummy's unwrapped hand he'd seen in one of Dudley's discarded books. Like the hand in the book, this one had wrinkly dried skin, like parchment gone yellow-brown with age, which had stretched over the tendons and shrunk onto the bones as the flesh dried away. Unlike the one in the book, this hand was grasping a fat grey candle. He didn't want to look any closer. Rusty spiked implements of uncertain, but surely nasty, purpose hung from the ceiling and on the walls, and the bones piled on a counter looked suspiciously human.

He was very sure he didn't want to meet anyone who worked in a shop like this one, but he didn't see a jar of that glittery green Floo powder on the mantle, or anywhere else, either. Even if I did, he thought, they might catch me when I called out the name. And besides, with my luck I'd probably end up in Marcus Flint's house, or a vampire's castle in Transylvania, or some other place that's even worse than here. Standing as still and as quiet as he could, he looked about him, trying to find the door. There it would be, by the window. He couldn't see any too clearly through the smeared glass, but he was sure that the dingy street outside wasn't Diagon Alley.

Suddenly, he sensed movement behind him, and heard the noise of the Floo. He nearly panicked, thinking this might be a customer who'd turn him in to the shop's owner, but some instinct told him to stay calm. He turned, just in time to catch Hermione in his arms as she stumbled out the Floo, a little bit more gracefully than he'd done. "Har--"

He stopped her with a finger across her lips. "I don't know where we are," he whispered, leaning close, "but I don't think it's in Diagon Alley. And it doesn't look a place we want to stay in."

"No," she whispered back. "I'd say we should wait for Ginny, but I saw her mum take her by the hand. I'm glad she's safe, at least."

"That's good. I think the door's over there. Let's scarper."

"Let's."

Just then, they heard the door open, and the sound of voices. Hermione pulled at his arm, and pointed to a large cabinet, or perhaps it was an old wardrobe. It looked just big enough for them to hide in, so they did.

It was good that Ginny wasn't with them, as much as Harry missed her--the cabinet was a tight enough fit for the two of them alone. He put his arms around Hermione's shoulders, hoping it might make her feel a little better. She rubbed her cheek against his, the way she did in bed, sometimes. He was very conscious of how warm she was, how vital and alive. Of how much she meant to Ginny, and how much she meant to him. If anything happens... I have to protect her. I don't know what I'll do, but I'll think of something. His wand was in his pocket, and he checked to make sure he could easily reach it.

If footsteps came close to the cabinet, he'd... fill his hand, that was what Buford Stribling, the hero from one of Ginny's books, a tough American wizard-cowboy who rode a white hippogriff, always said. He wished the book had actually explained how to cast the deadly curses that Stribling and the other spellslingers used when they duelled in the dusty streets outside saloons and pool halls.

Then he remembered the chapter when a cattle baron and secret dark wizard had tried to frame Stribling and his half-Apache nephew for murder and bank robbery. The heroes had used ordinary jinxes, leg-lockers and tongue-twisters and tickling and sneezing spells, to hold up the United States Magical Marshal and his posse of honest Wizard miners and homesteaders until they could defeat the villain and clear their names. He knew those spells, and if he had to, he'd use them. At least he might be able to buy Hermione enough time to get away. But it would be hard to convince her to run without him, and then she'd be alone in an uncertain street; for her sake, he'd have to do his best to get both of them clear.

He recognised one of the voices: Draco Malfoy. The other was apparently Draco's father. Harry didn't pay as much attention to the unctuous shopkeeper, to Draco, or to the conversation about dark items Mr. Malfoy wanted to sell as he might have done under other circumstances. He was too busy planning for what he might have to do if the cabinet door was opened.

At last the Malfoys left, and Borgin the shopkeeper went into the back room. Harry and Hermione opened the door of the cabinet, tiptoed to the door, and carefully made their way outside what the sign outside told them was called Borgin and Burke's.

The cobbled street was dirty with soot and grime and bits of rubbish that had apparently been dropped and left wherever the person who'd finished with the bottle or tin or scrap of paper had been standing. It had never hit him before, how much neater Diagon Alley was than the Muggle streets outside the Leaky Cauldron, and he wondered if there were street-sweeping charms used there that nobody had ever bothered to cast here. There was even manure in places, as if carts drawn by horses or some similar animal had trundled across the cobbles this morning.

The shops all looked as seedy and dodgy as the one they'd left; some openly advertised poisons and potions ingredients that didn't sound like anything from their Hogwarts lessons. The wizards and witches fit in with the scenery. Most were dressed in threadbare cloaks and robes, although a few had unusually fine clothes, such as one wizard who carried a glossy black staff topped with a silver skull and wore a dark red velvet top hat and tails, the coat and hat both edged with silver gilt and covered in subtle designs that Harry somehow knew he didn't want to see from any closer up. Everyone got themselves clear of his path, as if even the fierce-looking witch with the painted face and two big knives on her belt and the stumbling cross-eyed wizard who was singing bits and pieces of a dozen different songs and drinking from a bottle of something that made purple smoke come out his ears at every pull didn't want to see them, either.

Harry was sure that he and Hermione looked as out of place as a pair of budgies in a flock of crows. He grasped her hand. "I'm sure we'll find the way back to Diagon Alley in a block or two," he whispered. He slipped his broken glasses into his pocket. "You'll have to do most of the looking for us, I'm afraid. Sorry about that."

"Don't worry, Harry," Hermione whispered back. "I know you'll keep me safe."

"Lost, my dearies?" cackled a gap-toothed hag with a tray of what looked like human fingernails.

"No, ma'am," Harry said firmly as he could, trying to make his voice go deep and manly, trying not to squint, to pretend he could see her perfectly clearly. "We were just on our way out." His voice cracked on the last word.

"Are you sure, love? There's lots of danger in Knockturn Alley for a couple of tasty little morsels like yourself and your girlfriend there. Let Maggie help you..."

"No, thank you, ma'am," he said, preparing to draw his wand and fire off a Petrificus Totalus, the most effective spell he could think of. He reckoned he could see well enough to cast it, here at close range. "The lady and I were just about to go to meet her parents, and her father's not a patient man."

"He certainly isn't," Hermione said. "I'd hate to think what he might do to someone who dared to delay his daughter and her betrothed."

"Oi, Rubeus!" the hag called out, waving. "Just the man I was hoping to see. Care to give a girl a hand, love?"

"Maggie!" a familiar voice bellowed. "What cheer, my love?"

"Always a delight to see you, Rubeus," she said, giggling. "I've just found two strayed lambs, and I'm no shepherd. Would you mind showing them the way out?" She looked Harry in the eye. "You're very brave, my lad, and I'm sure that when you're a few more years grown you'll be well able to take care of yourself and your lady, but right now you two are better off not walking these streets alone. Mr. Hagrid's good people, he's the gamekeeper at Hogwarts. He'll take you safely back to Diagon."

"We know him," Hermione said. "Thank you."

"Sorry for being so... suspicious," Harry said.

Maggie grinned at him. "No worries, love. There's hags and there's hags, you see, and how were you and your sweetheart to know which sort I might be? I do have to admit that these lovely fresh Mufflepud scales might look a bit... dodgy, you not having seen them before."

Hagrid's hand descended on Harry's shoulder, a comforting weight. "Now Harry, Hermione, what's brought ye here? Knockturn Alley's no place for a pair of kids."

"We didn't mean to be here," Harry said. "The Floo... we've never taken it before, and we came out the wrong grate. In Borgin and Burke's."

"Yeh've got to be more careful, Harry. Ent wise ter be seen round these parts. Most especially round that shop. I've seen hard men cross the street just because they were passing it by."

"Umm, Hagrid?" Hermione said. "Why are you here, then?"

"I've friends that work here," Hagrid said, "like Maggie. And I was looking for something to keep the Flesh Eating Slugs off me cabbages. Besides that, I'm an old man, me, and can't hardly get a worse reputation than I've already got."

They had to trot along to keep up with Hagrid's vast strides; Harry reckoned he and Hermione both had to take three steps to match one of the big man's. They hurried through the streets, too fast to have any hope of remembering the way. The cobblestone streets gradually got better repaired and the houses cleaner, more and more of them with neatly kept window boxes. At last, they came out in Diagon Alley, close by the Leaky Cauldron. Harry wondered at what point he should let go of Hermione's hand. Her parents would be there, and something made him think she'd surely not want them to see her holding hands with a boy.

Suddenly there was a blur of blue dress and freckled face and flying red hair, dashing and dodging between witches and wizards and calling out "HarryHermione! ThankGodyou'reallright! Imissedyousomuch!" And Ginny caught them both and hugged them together as tightly as she could, with no regard for what anyone else might think. Harry didn't know why he suddenly felt so much warmer, why Hermione was grinning wider than he'd ever seen her grin before, why he wished so much that he could press his lips against both girls' lips and kiss them as if they were all three of them grown up.

"Where'd you go?" Ginny said, speaking a little more slowly. "What happened? I was so afraid I'd lost you both. I'd have tried to follow, but Mum had my hand..."

"It's just as well you didn't, love," Hermione said. "We fetched up in Knockturn Alley."

"Harry! Hermione!" Mrs. Weasley shouted. "Why didn't you get out at the Cauldron's grate?"

"I didn't know how to find it," Harry said, feeling very awkward. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Ginny said. "Nobody did anything like a proper job of telling you how. I'm sorry I wasn't brave enough to stand up and say something. When we go home today, the three of us will all hold hands. I'll guide you."

Mrs. Weasley might have said something, but Mr. Weasley had caught up with her. "Oh well," he said, "all's well that ends well. What happened to your glasses, Harry? Need them fixed?" He repaired them with a quick spell, and Mrs. Weasley pulled a brush from her handbag and began cleaning the soot off of Harry and Hermione. There must have been something magical about her bag, Harry thought, because there was no way the brush could have fit in it, otherwise.

"Knockturn Alley!" George, or maybe it was Fred, said. "Wicked!"

"We've never been allowed in there," Ron said. "It's not fair at all. Think you could take me with you, next time?"

"Don't even think about it, lads," Hagrid rumbled. "'Snot a good place. Harry and Hermione've had a right scare, and ye shouldn't be bothering them about it."

"'S not fair," Ron muttered. A glare from Mrs. Weasley silenced him.

The clock struck nine. "Goodness," Hermione said, "my parents said they'd meet us in the Cauldron at a quarter past. We'd better go."

"Of course," Mr. Weasley said. "I'm so looking forward to meeting them. And do you think there's any chance they might know what holds up an aeroplane? I've always wondered how something that big flies without any magic. Everyone knows that if dragons didn't have magic their wings wouldn't be enough to get them off the ground or keep them in the air."

"Well, there's something called Bernoulli's principle," Hermione said as they walked briskly down the street. "The lift comes from the thickness of the air, the speed of the plane, and the shape of the wings..."

"Be careful, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, "he might trip over his feet if you distract him. Besides, wouldn't your father be better at explaining something like this?"

Hermione winced and fell silent. Harry's glance flicked from Hermione to Ginny, who was glaring at her mother's back. He took both girls' hands and gave them a quick squeeze. They didn't let go until almost the doorstep of the Cauldron.

Once they'd stepped inside, Hermione squeaked and waved to a middle aged couple who sat at one of the small tables, drinking coffee and looking just slightly out of place. Much to Harry's surprise, she grabbed his hand again, and Ginny's, and tugged them along with her. "Mum, Dad! Hullo! These are my friends Harry and Ginny."

Hermione's mum and dad were... you could tell they were Hermione's parents, that was the best way Harry could put it. It wasn't so much their looks, although Mrs. Granger, as he remembered from when she dropped Hermione off, did have hair almost as bushy as her daughter's, if slightly lighter in colour, and Mr. Granger's nose was long and a bit pointed, very much like Hermione's.

It was more in the way they carried themselves, the way that they looked about them, taking in everything. And it was definitely in the way that their fingertips were touching where their hands rested on the table, and the way they kept looking at each other, even as they were greeting their daughter. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were comfortable and openly affectionate with each other, but there was something about the Grangers that he couldn't quite describe. It made him think of Hermione. Of the way she sometimes looked at him... and at Ginny, now.

Hermione hugged her parents, and Harry stood there beside Ginny, feeling strangely uncertain. He and Ginny glanced at each other, and it was hard not to take her hand again. But something made him think that wouldn't look right, here in the middle of the Cauldron, and in front of Hermione's parents and all.

The hugging was over, and Hermione turned back to Harry and Ginny, almost glowing. "Mum, Dad, these are my... wait, I already said that, didn't I?"

"Hello, my dears," Hermione's mother said. "I remember you from when I dropped Hermione off, of course. Lovely to see you again." She shook their hands, but Harry had an odd feeling that she was thinking of hugging them. "I'm delighted that Hermione has such good friends."

"So, you're the boy my daughter's been writing about all this last year. Pleased to meet you," Mr. Granger said, shaking Harry's hand. Harry couldn't quite decide if he was speaking gruffly because he couldn't talk any other way, or if he was actually trying to be intimidating.

"Daddy..." Hermione said, just as her mother said "Alwyn..."

"Gadzooks, what did I say?"

"Don't embarrass our daughter."

"What? It's not as if your dad didn't say the same thing to me. And you must be the girl she's been writing about all month," he said, turning to Ginny. "Pleased to meet you." Ginny giggled.

#

Poor Harry, Ginny thought to herself as they walked out of Gringotts. He'd been so nervous about meeting Hermione's parents, and so relieved once they didn't seem to have anything against him. But then they'd gone down to the vaults in the Gringotts cart. I wish we'd not all gone together, I really do. Ginny herself could have cared less how full of gold Harry's vault was, compared with her own family's, but she'd seen the look of resentment on Ron's face. And so, sadly, had Harry. He still looked as if his oldest friend had just slapped him in the face. Ron, you idiot, Harry's lost all his family. Never had a brother, never had a sister, grew up in a cupboard under the stairs and never got hugged... and does he look that way at you when he sees the lot of us round the table, when Mum hugs you or one of the twins slaps you on the back?

She wanted to grab hold of him. Hermione would embrace him from the other side, and together they'd squash him in the tightest hug they possibly could, make him forget Ron and everything else in the entire world but the fact that he had two friends who'd never let him go. But some things just couldn't be done. Goblins and witches and wizards would all stare at them, and Ron would make some nasty remark, and Mum would say Ginny was over-wrought, and God alone knew what Hermione's parents would think, or say. She contented herself with a quick squeeze of his hand. Hermione, on his opposite side, did the same. The two girls shared a brief glance and smile. Ginny's heart swelled with love. Someday, Harry, we'll take you away, Hermione and me, and keep you safe from jealous gits and mean relatives and everyone else who might hurt you.

They went on to the bookshop. Ginny spared a glance at Ollivander's, feeling a bit wistful. A wand of her very own would be wonderful. Naturally, it would have the same core as Harry's with the same wood as Hermione's, or maybe it would be the other way around. But a new wand would be far too expensive, with five of them still at Hogwarts, and Mum had taken her through the family's collection of heirloom wands at the beginning of the summer. Uncle Fabian's wand had seemed to like her, which had made Mum get a little teary-eyed, but her great-grandmother Matilda Vickers Weasley's had been even better.

That was just as good as her own wand, really. There was a picture of Great-gran Matilda as a young woman in one of the family photo albums, and she was gorgeous, dressed in an old-fashioned set of Auror's combat robes. She always smiled and waved at Ginny, as if she'd known they had something in common even when Ginny was a little girl with scraped-up knees. She'd been a great heroine, and had travelled round the world fighting Dark Wizards along with her husband, Lemuel Weasley, and their best friend, Athenée Delacour, a French Hitwitch.

Somebody had even written an entire book about them and their adventures. There was a copy in the family library, and Ginny had wanted to read it for a long time, but it was on the special shelf, the one under wards, and Mum always said she wasn't nearly old enough for it. Maybe it's got too many spells in it, and once I've been a year at Hogwarts she'll finally let me. She didn't know why Mum blushed every time Ginny asked about it, but presumably it was another of those grown up things that she was always being told she'd understand someday in the future.

There was a long queue, or perhaps it was better to call it a scrum, outside of Flourish and Blott's. Most of the folk were witches, and they all looked eager, as if they were waiting to meet someone special. There were a few wizards who looked just as eager. Ginny noticed that all of them seemed to have dressed more carefully than her father and brothers and uncles did, more like the wizards in Mum's fashion magazines. To a man, their hair, whether it was short and spiky like Charlie's, long and flowing like Bill's, or somewhere in between, was perfect. Perhaps that was because they'd somehow known there would be plenty of witches here today, and wanted to look their best.

Hermione scowled, suddenly, and Ginny wondered why. If she's seen somebody from Hogwarts who's mean to her... I'll have to watch out for them. And then they'll have to watch out for me. Nobody's mean to my Hermione and gets away with it. For a moment she lost herself in a brief pleasant fantasy where she saved Harry and Hermione from a dragon and they both kissed her full on the lips, and then Headmaster Dumbledore told them that any girl who saved fellow pupils from a dragon got to share a private room at Hogwarts with the people she'd saved, and of course Hermione's parents would say that Muggle custom meant she and Harry would have to come home with Hermione and sleep in her bed with her until the start of term, and for all the rest of their lives they'd never ever have to be apart again.

Then she saw the sign, and realised why her friend was scowling. Gilderoy Lockhart was signing books today. "He's a fraud, and a cheat, and... and I believed him," Hermione muttered. "He wrote books. People who write books are supposed to tell the truth." Harry patted her shoulder, looking as if he wished he could hug her, but didn't dare.

Ginny got on Hermione's other side, and put her arm about her. I know Harry's too nervous about what her parents will think, but surely they'll only see me as a girl who's put her arm about her best friend. "I know, love, I know," she whispered. "He's a big ugly liar who can't even come up with a decent recipe for cabbage fairy repellent."

"Shouldn't we tell everyone he's a charlatan, and how we found out? If they knew, then surely they'd all go away, and somebody would write about it in The Daily Prophet, and maybe we'd have real books instead of his for our Defence lessons next year."

That didn't sound likely, but Ginny couldn't think how to say it without making Hermione feel even worse. On Hermione's other side, Harry said softly "Remember 'The Emperor's New Clothes'? And how all the people blamed the little boy who told them the Emperor wasn't wearing anything, instead of blaming the Emperor and the men who convinced him they were making him the world's finest robes?"

Hermione blushed. "I suppose you're right. But... I wish there were something we could do."

"Someday," Harry said, "Hermione Granger will be a famous witch who invents spells and writes books and whom everybody's heard of, and nobody will remember Gilderoy Lockhart at all."

"Except maybe as a big joke, or a trivia question: 'What wizard never showed his face in public again after being beaten in a duel by a garden gnome?'"

Hermione's laugh made Ginny's heart feel warm. "You're right. Thanks, loves."

Ron gave them a sharp look, as if he'd heard Hermione's last word and didn't think well of it, but he didn't say anything and Ginny didn't care a bit what he thought. If Harry and Hermione had seen him and had their feelings hurt, she would've been angry with her brother, but they'd been looking the other way and at the moment Ginny was too happy to think about anything but her two best friends.

#

Hermione's emotions were bouncing all over the place of late. She knew perfectly well that was supposed to happen, of course, what with all the hormones flowing through her body. She'd read all of the books about puberty that her mother had given her, from the silly breathless ones written for girls of her age--some of them did have really nice and interesting pictures, although the boys' hair should have been blacker and messier and the girls would've been much cuter if they'd had red tresses and plenty of freckles, but she'd had to rewrite half the texts as she read them just to keep herself sane--to the heavy university-level atlas of human sexuality, not to mention The Joy of Sex and an illustrated Kama Sutra, both of which she'd sneaked off her parents' bookshelves when they weren't looking, but for some irritating reason knowing it was supposed to happen didn't much help when it actually did.

A moment ago she'd been indignant about the fraud Lockhart and the essential wrongness of a world where books were published that weren't true, silly people got excited about seeing a liar who couldn't even keep his own lies straight, and--as much as she hated to admit it, even to herself--earlier in the summer Hermione Granger herself had got ridiculously excited and fluttery about that same liar despite the fact that she already knew a boy who had truly fought a troll and twice defeated the Dark Lord, and who was modest and sweet and handsome and amazingly cuddly besides. But then her wonderful friends had stepped in, and comforted her, and even made her laugh.

That was good, but now she had a different sort of problem. Now she was feeling all tingly in places which, in spite of all the books and her mother's reassurances and the detachment that was appropriate to a bright young witch who'd wanted to be an historian or an archaeologist until an owl dropped a scroll of parchment in her lap on her eleventh birthday, she felt embarrassed even thinking about. And the worst of it was that it seemed both Harry and Ginny made her feel that way. And that implied... something.

Her parents had raised her to be polite and accepting, to think that it was just fine that Cousin Beryl always came to family functions with her dear friend and house-mate Anastasia instead of a husband or boyfriend. She was sure that if she grew up to have that same sort of relationship with Ginny, or some other girl, her parents wouldn't think any less of her. But at the same time, she'd heard her mother joking about phases and schoolgirl pashes and her father muttering about famous singers and other people who "wouldn't grow up and make a choice" whether they fancied men or women. What would they say if Hermione should grow up and find that she couldn't make a choice?

Besides that, she shouldn't be thinking this way at all. Harry was younger than Hermione, and all the books said that boys developed more slowly, and Ginny was younger than Harry. Hermione had no right to hope that their kind and friendly affection might mean they felt the same way about her, much less to look at Ginny and enjoy the thought that her friend's chest and hips were already beginning to swell a little bit, or wish for a chance to see Harry with his shirt off so she could see how much coarse dark hair might be sprouting under his arms and between his belt and his navel and maybe even around his nipples.

It wasn't that Hermione wanted to actually do anything yet, of course. She was still committed to the idea of waiting until they were... well, maybe not off at university, but at least in Seventh Year. Or Sixth, at the earliest. But somehow she thought it would make it easier if she knew wasn't the only one, instead of having to imagine and wonder and hope and desperately wish she knew how to pray and could make herself believe it would do any good.

She wished they were back at home, where the Bundling Charm could do its work. If they had been in their--that was to say, in Ginny's room--she'd begin finding pretty patterns in Ginny's freckles, and comparing them with the texture of Harry's hair, and maybe that would start her thinking about the properties of the number three as described in the Arithmancy book she'd been reading in preparation for the school year... at least until Harry said something sweet without realising it and both she and Ginny had to hug him, or Ginny started tickling Harry's toes and Hermione simply had to join in.

They squeezed their way through the crowd, hoping to get into Flourish and Blott's and get the books they needed before the madness with Lockhart started. With any luck, he's still having his teeth and nails buffed and we'll not have to see him.

Unfortunately, they seemed to be out of luck. Lockhart was busy being photographed for the newspaper, and flirting all the while with both the reporter,a peroxide-blonde witch in acid-green robes, and her photographer, a skinny little man with a camera that looked like a prop from a 1930s movie. "I hate to go near him, but maybe we should get our Defence books whilst he's distracted?" Harry whispered.

"If he sees you, Harry," Hermione whispered back, "he'll likely grab you and make you pose with him. And whilst he's got his arm round you, I reckon he'll tell everyone how he taught you to defeat the Dark Lord when you were a baby."

"Maybe he'll not recognise our Harry if he doesn't see the scar," Ginny said. "Could you pull his fringe down over it, please, Hermione?"

"Please?" Harry said. "The last thing I want is to get within arm's length of that prat. His cologne's almost enough to make me sneeze all the way over here."

"It's worth a try." She looked round. Her dad was talking about something with Mr. Weasley; judging by the gestures, they'd progressed from the physics of Muggle flight to rugby league. Her mum and Mrs. Weasley were looking at cookbooks and pointedly ignoring Lockhart. She combed her fingers through Harry's fringe, wishing she knew a spell to cover the scar up altogether. Despite its stubbornness, his hair felt like silk. She wished they were somewhere far away, all three of them, with nobody about and nothing to do but comb each others' hair. "There, I think that's as good as I can make it."

"Merlin," Ron said sharply from behind her, "what are you trying to do to poor Harry now, Hermione? And what's next? Are you going to put him in a Full Body Bind so he'll stay still when you two start putting flowers in his hair?"

"What we're trying," Ginny said in a fierce whisper, "is to stop that blond ponce over there noticing our Harry and making a scene."

"Whyever for? I'm told Lockhart used to be a top test-rider for Nimbus. Maybe he'll give Harry a new broom. You'll give your old one to your best mate if he does that, won't you, Harry?"

"Sure thing, Ron. But I don't think he's going to be handing out any broomsticks."

"Can't you smell his ghastly cologne, Ron?" Ginny said. "He's not allowed to smother our Harry with it."

"Bah," Ron said, "that's nothing. If I were the Boy-Who-Lived, I'd do it. Of course, if I were the Boy-Who-Lived, maybe I'd already have got a new broom, just so I could give my old one to my best mate."

"If you were the Boy-Who-Lived, Ronald Bilius Weasley," Ginny said, "we'd all be dead. And aside from that, if Harry got a new broomstick and gave you the one he has now you'd be complaining because he'd kept the new one for himself."

"Shut up, Gin. You're just an ickle Firsty. What am I saying? You've not even been Sorted yet. I'm really hoping you'll go in Hufflepuff so I don't have to put up with watching you hanging off Harry at every moment. Although I'm sure he'll get sense and start acting a proper bloke again, once we're back at Hogwarts and he's got something else to do besides let you girls play with his hair."

"If I didn't know better, Ron," Harry said, "I'd think you were jealous cos you wanted to play with my hair."

"What does that mean?"

"We'll explain it when you're older," Ginny said. For a moment, Hermione thought Ron was going to hit his sister, or pull his wand and curse her. Harry must have thought so as well; his hand went to his wand.

Ron said a word that would've surely had his mother washing his mouth out with soap if she'd heard. He spun on his heel and pushed away through the crowd. Hermione realised that her own hand was tight on the grip of her own wand. It took her a moment to make herself let go. She felt her shoulders shake with suppressed tension.

Lockhart was talking, and every eye that wasn't on him was pointedly turned away. "Nobody's watching us," Harry whispered, and pulled both girls into a swift tight hug. "If he'd hurt you, Ginny... I don't know what I would've done."

"I don't know what I would have done, either," Hermione said. Her mind shied away from the image of Ginny sprawled on the floor or crouching with her hand pressed against her bloody nose and Ron vanishing in a fine red mist as Hermione and Harry poured all their fear and rage into a single mad wordless and wandless spell.

"I hope you would have left some of him for Mum," Ginny said. "I'm sure she could do things to him that none of us have ever imagined, not even in our worst nightmares."

"So," Harry said, "let's go and get our books, shall we?"

They worked their way round the fringes of the crowd. Harry was being careful to keep his head bent, and as much as Hermione regretted the bad posture she knew it was the right choice for him to make. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. "Ladies and gentlewizards! I see that there's a wizard in our midst who's almost as well known as myself! Yes, my very good friends and fans, when Harry Potter came here he was hoping only to get my autograph on a copy of my newly released autobiography, Magical Me, which is already on the best-seller list. But young Harry will be leaving here not only with a complete set of my books, free of charge, but with the joyful news that he will have his hero, the real, actual magical me, as his Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor for the coming year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"

"Bother," Ginny muttered. "I wonder if we could make a daring escape whilst he's talking?"

Hermione looked about. They were hemmed in on all sides by the crowd. "I think we'd need to use blasting curses to get through, which would be a bit much, really. Besides that, I don't know how to cast one yet."

Harry snorted laughter. "What do you think he'd do if I told him 'Thank you very much, Mr. Lockhart, but that's too much of an honour. Doesn't the world need you more than Hogwarts does?'"

Lockhart was still talking. "To tell you the truth, I nearly declined Headmaster Dumbledore's gracious offer! After all, the Dark which I am pledged to fight does not restrict its foul machinations to the school holidays. What if I should be called away to save the entire population of Botswana from a merciless horde of savage man-eating elephants, as I was in 1983?" A collective gasp echoed through the room, hiding Harry and Ginny and Hermione's snickering.

"But then I said to myself, 'Gilderoy Lockhart, old friend, is it not also your duty to bring the younger generation along? Hogwarts students might not have the power and skill to cast the secret Reversal Switching Verdant Missile spell with which you defeated the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Transvaal, but won't they benefit simply by hearing the story from your very own lips, which have been voted Britain's Best no less than six times by the readers of Witch Weekly? Is teaching not another form of fighting the Dark, your sworn duty?' And so I told Dumbledore that I would indeed join his staff. The great man's tears of gratitude on hearing my acceptance must rank as the most moving tribute of the many moving tributes I have received in my career."

"My God," Hermione said, scarce able to believe her ears, "did he just rob a creature off Douglas Adams?" Harry and Ginny looked confused. "He's a Muggle science fiction writer. I'll explain it later, loves. I think you'll find it amusing."

"Stand very still, Harry," Ginny whispered. "With any luck at all he'll get so busy talking about himself that he'll forget all about you in another minute." That sounded a very good plan. Hermione remembered doing much the same thing sometimes as a child at primary school when she didn't want to be noticed.

Unfortunately, it didn't work this time. "Come here, young Harry, let's give our good friends Madam Skeeter and Mister Clapshott a nice picture to go with their article." He stepped towards them.

Without even thinking about it, Hermione grabbed hold of Harry's arm. At the very same instant, Ginny took his other arm. Lockhart's hand descended on Harry's shoulder, the one on Hermione's side. She found it hard not to cough at the cloud of cologne that descended over her.

"Already got a little fanclub of your own, have you, Harry? I can give you some very useful advice about how to manage them... But that's for later, isn't it? They're welcome to pose with us right now. And believe me, my boy, with you and my illustrious self in the same frame we'll make the front page of the Prophet for sure. Not that I wouldn't have done, anyhow--Madam Skeeter's a very good friend of mine, if you take my meaning, and so is her editor-in-chief. Well, I'm sure you'd know all about that sort of thing, what?"

"Yessir," Harry managed to say, through clenched teeth. Hermione gave his arm a gentle squeeze. I'm glad the three of us are at least together. I can't imagine how awful this would be for Harry alone.

There was nothing they could do but go along with Lockhart, at this point. Hermione even managed to smile for the photographer. His ancient-looking hand-held flash unit gave a puff of off-pink smoke along with its burst of light. I'm being photographed with Harry and Ginny, she thought. That's nice, even if we do have this stupid smelly prat in the shot. I'll have to get a copy of tomorrow's Prophet, so I can have a picture of my best friends to look at until we go back to school and I can see them every day again. The thought was pleasant enough that for a moment she didn't even worry about what Ron would say to them afterwards. She crossed her fingers and hoped he was outside sulking, or trying to pick a fight with a Slytherin.

"Excuse me, Mister Lockhart, but I'm Harry's best mate!" Apparently Hermione had used up all of her wishes for today. "I really ought to be the one posing with you two. And is there any chance you've got a spare Nimbus broomstick to give away? That's a lot more useful than a bunch of books, that is."

Lockhart ignored Ron. "Farewell, Harry Potter," he said, "until we meet again in the Great Hall of good old Hogwarts." He pushed a stack of hardback books at Harry. Hermione and Ginny barely let go of his arms in time for him to catch the books. The three of them moved away as quickly as they could.

"Would one of you like these?" Harry said. "I can get my own." He wrinkled his nose. "Although they do stink a bit... maybe we should give them to somebody we don't like instead?"

"Mum knows some good charms for that sort of thing," Ginny said. "Maybe the three of us could share them?"

"I'd like that," Hermione said. "Given that we do have to read the blasted things, at least that way we'll not be putting any more Galleons in Lockhart's pockets."

"Showing off your money, Harry?" Ron said. Ginny glared at him, and looked as if she were on the point of saying something. If he tries to attack her, I'll trip him and pretend it was an accident. And so much the better if he falls on his face and breaks something, Hermione thought.

"Well, well, Weasley, brought the whole menagerie out today, have we?" The voice was cultured, drawling, male. Hermione knew she'd heard it somewhere before... this morning, in Borgin and Burke's. It was Lucius Malfoy. Draco's father. He was tall and lordly-looking, his blond hair tied back with a black ribbon. She might have called him handsome, if it hadn't been for the hateful sneer on his face.

He picked up a second-hand Transfiguration book from the stack in Ron's cauldron and flipped through it. "This looks awfully familiar--well, dear Mother did say she'd donated my old school books for a jumble sale, some years back. Not that I blame you for economising, of course. However do you afford even to feed the lot of them on what the Ministry pays the head of a minor office? I suppose that's why you're trying to palm your daughter off on young Harry Potter. It's not a bad plan, really. She could even leave school after her OWLS, assuming he decides to keep her. And the Potters always were ridiculously sentimental, so he probably will, at least as a mistress, even if he makes a better match."

Mr. Weasley howled a blood-curdling war cry and lit into Malfoy with his fists. Malfoy for his part, did his best to fight back, although neither had very much technique. She couldn't help but think they were re-enacting a fight from their own childhood. For a moment it was hard not to giggle as she envisioned Ron and Draco, twenty or thirty years from now, doing exactly the same thing. Hagrid and her own father stepped in to separate the two men. They didn't manage the job as quickly as she would have expected them to, given Hagrid's size and strength and her father's black belts in judo and tae kwon do, and she couldn't help but wonder if one or both of them might be hoping for an opportunity to accidentally injure Malfoy.

Ron yelled encouragement to his father, until Mrs. Weasley hit him with a silencing charm. Hermione looked at Ginny, and saw that her face was bright red and scrunched up as if she were trying not to cry. She put her arm round her friend's shoulders, feeling Harry do the same from the other side, and forgot about the fight. There were more important things.

Finally, they were all outside again with their books and other purchases. Hermione and Harry stood silently with Ginny, as close together as they could without actually embracing, whilst Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had a quiet argument a few steps away. Hermione wished they could simply escape, the three of them, to some far away place with a quiet brook and a warm meadow with a big tree where they could spread a blanket and have a little picnic and a long cuddle. There would be nobody around at all, and perhaps Ginny would stretch out on the blanket and let Harry and Hermione rub the tension out of her shoulders and back.

Hermione's own parents were talking softly together. They weren't arguing, she could tell, but it seemed as if there were something more going on than simply them letting the other couple have their privacy. At last, her mother came over to her and said softly "I'm sorry to take you away from your friends, Hermione, but could we talk for a few minutes?"

The butterflies started doing aerobatic tricks in her stomach. Have I been too obvious? Are they going to tell me that I need to be careful, because we're just kids and if Harry has to make a choice between me and Ginny right now it might hurt all of us? Or, worse, that I'm young and my friends are younger than me and I shouldn't go looking to them for things they can't give me? Then a mad vision sprang into her head: her parents telling her they were delighted to see Hermione growing up to be just like them because they'd got back together with their girlfriend from university and they'd been worrying for months about how to explain their relationship. Not in a million years. Much as I'd like to know they weren't upset with me, I really don't want to think about them doing anything like that at all, even if I do know perfectly well that they didn't find me under a cabbage leaf and no stork dropped me down the chimney. It's bad enough when they excuse themselves to 'go have a lie-down' in the middle of Sunday afternoon. "Umm... of course, Mum."

"I hope you don't mind my borrowing her," Hermione's mother said to Harry and Ginny, with a little wink. "I promise we'll not take too long." Harry's slightly stunned expression and Ginny's tiny urchin grin were one of the cutest sights Hermione had ever seen.

"I'm really sorry, sweetheart," her father said, "but your gran still needs a lot of help. So much that even she admits it." Her mother mimed swatting him, the way she always did, but both were grinning. Hermione knew that her father thought of her mother's mum almost as if she were his own second mother.

"So," her mother said, "I know it's a terrible imposition, and it's not that we love you any less or want you out of the way, but... would you mind staying with the Weasleys until you leave for school? Mr. and Mrs. Weasley said they'd be delighted, and it seems as if you and Harry and Ginny are getting on very well, so I hope it's all right."

"I'm sure we could manage, if you really want to come home, pumpkin, but I'm afraid it would be awfully boring for you. It'd be wonderful to be with you, of course, but you'd end up sitting round in a lot of waiting rooms and such." Her father looked worried, as if he thought she might suddenly burst into tears.

"Dad, Mum," she stammered, "that's perfect. Thank you! I mean... it's fine. It's not that I don't miss you, and miss home, but... Harry and Ginny are my best friends, and I'd miss them as well. I hope that's all right."

"It's fine, sweetheart," her mother said. "It's lovely. I'm so happy that you've made friends."

"Yes. Although that Harry lad had better treat you right... only teasing, Lydia my love, only teasing."

Her mother shook her head. "Well, then, Hermione, perhaps you should go and tell them, shouldn't you?"

Harry and Ginny were looking at the three of them, rather anxiously. She rushed back to them. "I have wonderful news," she said. "My parents say I can stay for the rest of the summer. With you. That is, if you want..."

Ginny hugged her. "Of course we want you to stay, you silly girl."

Harry patted her on the shoulder. "I almost wish we were back in that crowd, so I could hug you without anybody staring at us."

"When we get home again."

"I'll hold both of you to that," Ginny said.

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't."

Before Hermione's parents stepped back into Muggle London and the rest of them floo'd back to the Burrow, her mother handed her a bag. "From what you said about the river in your letter, I thought you might like to have these. I did my best to estimate Harry's size, and Molly--Mrs. Weasley--said she has a spell to make them fit if I was wrong. And I got you copies of our pictures from Spain. Maybe Harry and Ginny might like to see them?"

"Thanks so much, Mum!" She hugged her parents goodbye. Much to her surprise, her mother hugged both Ginny and Harry. "Take good care of our Hermione," she heard her mother say.

"And now," Ginny said, "take my hands, both of you. I'm not letting you get lost in the Floo again."

Chapter Text

The tension between Mr. and Mrs. Weasley was still palpable during dinner. As soon as they'd helped clear the table, Harry and Hermione and Ginny made their escape across the farmyard to the barn. On the way, Ginny took an old blanket from the hall closet.

Up in the loft, they took off their shoes and made a little nest with their blanket in the loose hay. They snuggled together with Ginny in the middle, on her back. "I'm all right, loves," she whispered. "I don't have to be..."

"But we'd like you to be," Harry whispered back. She snuggled closer, and nuzzled his cheek.

"Yes," Hermione murmured. Ginny nuzzled her cheek as well. Harry took off his glasses and leant forward, so the threesome could rub noses, all together at once.

There was a sweet silence, and Harry wondered if the girls had fallen asleep. Then Hermione said softly "Ginny? Could... could we rub your back?"

"Hmm...?"

"I mean with your dress on, of course. But... your shoulders felt so tense, earlier today. I'd think they'd still be hurting. I... you don't have to, if you'd rather not."

"Oh, Hermione. Of course. If you'd like to. If you don't mind. Would you, Harry?"

"I'd love to. I'm afraid I'll not know what I'm doing, but if Hermione thinks she can teach me--"

"Oh, Harry. I'm sure you'll be fine at it. So... shall we?" They sat up.

It was an hour or two until sunset. The light in the loft was perfect. That was the only way Harry could think to describe it. It came through the little unglazed windows under the eaves, and made the girls' skin and hair glow.

"All right, Ginny," Hermione said, "if you'll lie down on your belly, we'll get started."

"Promise me I'll get a chance to do for you and Harry?"

"Of course you will," Harry said. "But it's your turn first. After all, we made you worry by getting out the Floo at the wrong grate, didn't we?"

"Mm, okay." Ginny laid down, and Harry and Hermione faced each other over her back.

Hermione got to her knees, and Harry copied her. They shared a smile. Hermione brushed Ginny's ponytail off her shoulders. Her fingers looked so nice on the nape of Ginny's neck. Harry laid his hand next to hers, and they twined together for an instant, stroking. "All right, Harry, we'll start like this. Just gently knead her muscles with your fingers... see how I'm doing it? How's that, Ginny?"

"'S wonderful."

"And now we work down her spine, all the way down to her waist. Is that all right, Ginny? It's not... too much?"

"Of course not, loves. It's nice."

"And now back up again."

"Mm... you're spoiling me."

"It's nothing less than what you deserve. And now, Harry, we'll rub along her shoulders... just follow the muscles, see?"

"Okay. Is that good, Ginny? I'm not hurting you?"

"Yes. You... you could even press a little harder, Harry. If you'd like to."

"If that's what you'd like."

"Mm, please... Yes, that's it. You're both so good to me."

"No better than you are to us," Hermione said.

They rubbed Ginny's back for a few more minutes. At last, she murmured "I wish I were a cat, so I could purrrrrrr." Hermione giggled. Harry was almost overwhelmed with love for the girls, so much that it was a moment before he could laugh. "So now," Ginny said, "before I fall asleep, it's your turn. Who's first?"

Harry knew instantly who it should be. "Hermione."

"Are you sure, Harry?"

"Of course I am."

"Mm, I want to do it to both of you, of course," Ginny said, rolling over and sitting up, "but you're the one who's teaching us how to do it. I think you should get the benefits of your instruction."

"Well, if you insist..."

"We do," Harry said.

"And if we run out of time now," Ginny added, "we could always rub Harry's back tonight before we go to sleep."

It was clear that Hermione understood there was nothing else to be said. They paused for a swift three way hug and exchange of cheek kisses before she laid herself down between Harry and Ginny.

"So," Ginny said, "we'll just do what you and Harry did to me, all right?"

"That sounds wonderful," Hermione said. "You know... it was so much fun, doing that to you. I've always wanted to have a friend I could give back rubs to."

"Well, now you have two. So, Harry, let's start with her shoulders, just like you two did with me. Okay?"

Several minutes later, Hermione was sprawled contentedly on the blanket. Ginny looked down at her, looked up at Harry, and grinned. "Doesn't she look pretty like that?"

"Yes, but doesn't she always look pretty? I mean, she is one of the two prettiest girls on the planet..."

"Come you down here, Harry," Hermione murmured. "Boys who say things like that deserve to have their backs rubbed."

"Yes. Before Mum sends my stupid brother out to tell us we should be going to bed."

Having his back rubbed felt almost as nice as rubbing the girls' backs. Harry found himself relaxing, almost to the point of falling asleep. It mightn't be bad to sleep out here. Then again, anywhere he could sleep with Hermione and Ginny would be fine with him.

"That good, Harry?" Hermione whispered.

"Yes, love. Thanks. Thank you both." He rolled onto his back, and the girls laid themselves down on either side of him and snuggled close. The scent of hay mingled with the scent of Hermione and Ginny in a way that he knew he would love for the rest of his life.

"Oi! Harry! Hermione! Ginny! Mum says it's time for bed!"

"Curse you, Ron," Ginny muttered.

"Well, it could've been the Twins," Harry said. "Would that be worse?"

"They'd probably bring Dad's old camera and take a picture of us," Ginny said. "So, yes, it likely would be."

"What's so bad about that? It might be nice to have a picture of us that didn't have Gilderoy Fakehart in."

"Hermione, they'd probably hang it up in the Common Room," Harry said. "Not that I'm embarrassed to be seen with the two of you, but..."

"Yes," Hermione said. "If all the girls knew how sweet you are, we'd have Parvati and Lavender wanting to come to bed with us as well."

"No, thanks," Harry said. "The two of you, that's all the girls I want to sleep with." He didn't quite understand why that made Ginny and Hermione hug him so hard, but he liked it that they did.

"Would you please come down? Mum says we can have biscuits before bed, but not until everyone's in the kitchen."

Ginny cupped her hands round her mouth. "All right, Ron, we'll be there in a minute."

"Just don't take all night, please?"

"Of course we'll not take all night, Ron." She giggled. "At least I don't think we will."

"Wait... you're not doing something... sappy or something, are you?"

"What did you think we'd be doing, Ron?" Hermione said.

"I don't know. More than that, I don't want to know. So don't tell me about it, okay?"

Laughing, the threesome gave each other a final squeeze before getting up and folding the blanket.

#

The next day was bright and sunny and warm. Ginny woke up happy, snuggled in Harry's arms, holding Hermione's hand against her heart. She still had both of her best friends in her bed, and she would be able to sleep with them every night until they went to Hogwarts. Once her mum woke them, they sat up together, the bedclothes still partly wrapped about them. "So, what will we do today?" she whispered.

"The same thing we do every day, darling," Hermione said. "Hug Harry." She did, and Ginny joined them.

"And try not to get roped into playing chess with my brother again. Can't forget that one, can we?"

"Good point. But he is the brother of one of the two most wonderful girls on the planet, so I suppose I can give him one game in thanks for that."

"You're too good to me," Ginny said softly, and kissed Harry's cheek. As always, he kissed hers, and she kissed Hermione's. This time they did it at almost the same moment, and Ginny felt a little thrill run through her whole body at the simultaneous contact, just as she did an instant later when Hermione kissed her own cheek even as Harry kissed Hermione's.

Hearing more stirring, they got out of bed and stretched. "I suppose I'd better take my clothes and go get changed in the bathroom."

"Yes. I suppose you had better, Harry."

When he left, Ginny turned to Hermione. "I really do wish he could change here. It's not as if there's not a Bundling Charm, right? And we could just turn our backs. We'd not peek, would we? And neither would Harry."

Hermione sighed. "I know. And I know that you know, and Harry knows. But I suppose we do have to make sure everything we do is completely proper. For now."

Ginny went to the window and peered out. "It's such a nice day. So warm. Do you think Mum would cast a Bundling Charm on the riverbank so the three of us could go and have a bathe together?"

Hermione laughed. "Oh, that would be so lovely. I... I have to admit I've never actually gone for a bathe without any clothes on, at least not since I was very small. I'd be kind of nervous, I think. But I wouldn't mind trying it with you. And with Harry, if only it were all right for us to do it. I mean, I know it would be all right, and you know, and I'm sure Harry does, but if only other people would understand it was all right as well."

"Yes. We'd not have to worry about Ron bothering us there. When Luna and I were maybe seven or eight, and Mum told him that we were going for a bathe with Luna's cousin Clara, who was in Bill's year at Hogwarts, and said that he should stay away from the river and not bother us, he asked why. And when she said we'd not have any clothes on, he said she didn't have to worry, cos he'd not go within ten miles of any naked girls, most especially Luna and me, not even if it meant the Cannons would win the league. I nearly reminded him that I would be naked in the house every time I took a bath or changed my clothes, just to see if it would make him try running away to Timbuktu or China or somewhere like that."

It was almost a full minute before Hermione could stop laughing. "Ah, that's hilarious, love. But I would like to. If only she could cast a Bundling Charm out there... somehow it just sounds really nice, doesn't it?"

"I wish we could as well. I hope that's not strange or something."

"Of course not, Ginny. But, well, although it's not as nice as a Bundling Charm, my mum gave me a couple of swimming costumes for us. And one for Harry. And another for Ron, so he can go as well, at least if he wants to go."

"Oh, Hermione! Really? Thank you! I hope... I mean, that must be awfully expensive."

"They're not so expensive. There are lots more people in the Muggle world, and millions of them all want swimming costumes, and they've no magic to repair them with, which means most of them have to buy a new one, or maybe even two, every year, especially if they're our age and still growing, and because of that the factories make lots and lots of them. And your family are putting me up for the whole summer. Mum and Dad thought that would be a nice gift from them, just to say thank you."

"Oh, Hermione! Thank you! I love you! I mean, I really like you so so so very much!" She glomped onto her friend.

Hermione hugged her, just as tightly. "I love you as well, Ginny. I mean, I really like you as well, Ginny. So so so very much."

They stood like that for Ginny wasn't even sure how long. At last, Hermione whispered "We'd really better get changed, or Harry might walk in on us before we're done. We don't want to embarrass him, do we?"

"No. After all, one of my brothers might be walking past, and none of them would understand if they saw Harry coming in here and we weren't dressed."

"Yes."

The girls quickly stripped out of their pyjamas and threw on the nearest clothes. When Ginny turned round again, Hermione was smiling brightly, and pulled her into another hug. "Ginny, love, you look wonderful, but you might want to change your shirt. Somehow you've got on the top to Harry's pyjamas."

She looked down at herself. "Oh. I'm sorry. That's very silly of me."

"Don't be sorry. It looks really nice on you." Hermione held her at arm's length for an instant, then hugged her again. "I wish we could both wear Harry's shirts, sometimes. It just sounds really nice, doesn't it?"

"Yes." It felt so nice to hug Hermione. All she wanted to do was wait for Harry to come back and hug them both. For some reason she couldn't begin to articulate, Ginny desperately wished that Harry could see her wearing his shirt. "Well, I suppose I'd better change."

"Yes." Hermione sounded just as disappointed as Ginny felt. "You know... sometime, maybe we might just both put on shirts of Harry's and, well, let him see us in them. If you think it's all right..."

"I'd like that."

Hermione smiled brightly. "In that case, we'll definitely have to do it."

Ginny liked that the other girl was turned towards her as she changed her shirt, talking as casually as if she'd been tying her shoes. I think this might be the kind of thing that sisters do. And it must be just fine that she can see me taking my shirt off and putting another one on again, because the Bundling Charm would stop her if it was naughty, right? That's good, because I like it that she doesn't mind seeing me without a top on.

When Ginny was fully clothed again, the girls hugged. They were still hugging when Harry came in the room and joined in the clinch. And we didn't even have to ask him to hug us! Ginny thought as she and Hermione drew their boy into the embrace.

#

After breakfast, Ginny asked her mother if they could go for a bathe. "The gnomes have been at the carrots again, so I'd be grateful if you'd give the garden a good de-gnoming first, but after that you're very welcome to."

Ron looked delighted. "Want to go for a fly whilst the girls are bathing, Harry? We can go on the opposite side of the house from the river, out over the paddock and the wood, so we don't risk seeing anything that would give us nightmares." Mrs. Weasley had turned her back on them, so Ginny gave him the two-fingered salute. He grinned at her and stuck out his tongue.

"Thanks, Ron, but I was planning on going bathing with them. Maybe we could go flying later on?"

"Ha ha, Harry, very funny. And I suppose when we go back to Hogwarts you'll be taking your showers with them as well?"

Ginny scowled at him. "Harry needs somebody to teach him how to swim, and I don't see anybody else stepping up. Hermione and I will be happy to do the job."

"Go on, Gin. This joke wasn't funny in the first place, and now it's getting really stupid."

"We're not joking, Ronald."

"Mum! Did you hear that? I can't believe you're really going to let Ginny and Hermione drag Harry off to go bathing. Boys and girls aren't meant to go running about in front of each other without any clothes on, right?"

Ginny shook her head. "Hermione's mother gave us swimming costumes. There's even one for you, if you'd like to go along."

"Swimming costumes? Why would anybody wear a costume to swim in? It sounds like something you've just made up as a joke, like shoes for snakes or a wind-up broomstick. And it's bad enough that you're trying to drag Harry into this, Gin. You're not going to get me involved as well."

Mrs. Weasley turned away from the sink. "Don't be rude, Ronald. The Muggles make clothes for people to wear when they're bathing, so that boys and girls can share the same pond or stream or spot at the seaside at the same time. I think it's a very good idea, actually. It would have been nice if your father and I could have gone for a bathe together when we were still at school, instead of having to wait until we were married. Well, at least until we were almost married."

Ron turned pink and hid his face. Mrs. Weasley winked at Harry and the girls. I think I'm starting to realise where our Ginny got her sense of humour from, Harry thought.

"You believe them, Mum? Surely this is just some weird thing Hermione and Ginny made up to drag Harry into doing more weird girly things with them."

"Lydia--that is, Mrs. Granger--showed me the costumes. They're perfectly decent. Not appropriate for shopping in Diagon Alley, I suppose, or in a Muggle high street, for that matter, although I do remember my Auntie Imogene's neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Albinthorpe, showing up wearing nothing but loincloths at the World Cup when I was a girl, because everyone was meant to dress Muggle and they'd once been to some place overseas where that was all the Muggles wore, but in this case everything's covered that needs to be. She gave us one for you as well, if you'd like to spend time with your sister and your two best friends."

"No thanks. Well, good luck, Harry. I'd rather clean the chicken coop." Ron didn't quite stomp away.

Mrs. Weasley shook her head. "Well, at least he'll get something helpful done."

"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley. We'll put on our costumes under our clothes and go out to de-gnome, if that's all right?"

"Of course it is, Hermione. Have a wonderful time."

#

The Muggle swimming costume wasn't quite like anything Ginny had ever worn before. It was almost as if someone had sewn a pair of knickers and some sort of a singlet together, except that it had obviously been made in one piece, all of it, even the straps that would go over her shoulders. “Mum thought that shade of green would look nice with your hair and freckles,” Hermione said. “I hope you like it?”

“It's wonderful! Thank you! It's really so nice of her to think about that. Could I send her a note when you write to her?” Hermione's costume was a soft amber shade, a bit lighter than her hair, and Ginny could see it would look very nice on her as well. Harry's shorts--trunks, that was what they were called--were a plain blue, the sort of thing a boy would feel comfortable with, she supposed. He certainly looked pleased with them.

"Wow. Thank you so much, Hermione! I've never had a pair of these that hadn't been Dudley's first. Could I send your mum a note as well?"

Hermione hugged them both. "Of course you may! And thank you, both of you."

"Well, I suppose I'd better go in the bathroom and change, so you girls can do the same."

Ginny sighed. "I suppose you had better."

"Yes." They squeezed each other one more time, and Harry took his trunks and went across the hall.

Ginny wished he didn't have to go, but at the same time she was a bit grateful to have a moment of privacy to ask Hermione a question. "Umm... I'm sorry to sound so thick, but... am I meant to wear underwear under this?"

Hermione hugged her. "Of course you don't sound thick, love. You're our Ginny, and you've never worn a swimming costume before. And no, you're not meant to. There's a lining, and that takes the place of a pair of knickers, more or less."

"Okay." Ginny had a little hint of that strange tingly feeling again. She still wasn't sure if it was really uncomfortable or really nice. Or maybe it was both?

"You can actually wear a swimming costume instead of underwear, if you're out of clean knickers. I've done that, once or twice."

"Oh. Umm... does Harry's costume have...?"

"His one fits looser than ours, but there's something sort of like underpants built into it."

"Right. Well, we should change, shouldn't we?"

"Yes."

The girls turned their backs on each other, and Ginny stripped off, hearing Hermione doing likewise behind her. She was down to her knickers. And then she was wearing nothing at all. She stretched, feeling more than hearing that Hermione did likewise. Reminding herself that she needed to get changed before Harry came back, she reached over, picked up her swimming costume from the bed, and slipped her legs through the holes, first one foot, then the other. She pulled it up around her waist, and then pulled the straps up over her shoulders. "Oh, wait, this can't be right... it's not really covering my front from a few inches above my belly button on up. Not that I've got anything up there to speak of, of course, but does that mean I've got it on wrong?"

"Yes, love. It goes the other way round. Err... do you want me to help you?"

For an instant, Ginny wanted just that. But even as she thought about it, she noticed that there was a lark singing outside. It was a beautiful sound... she should go to the window to listen, and bring her Hermione with her. But wait--she needed to finish getting dressed first, didn't she? "That's all right, love. I think I can get it right now."

She stripped off again, turned the costume round, and got it on. When she turned round, Hermione was wearing her own swimming costume as well.

The older girl was smiling brightly. "You look wonderful, love."

"So do you." They hugged.

"Mm, this is nice, but I think we should put the rest of our clothes back on. I'd expect Harry should be nearly ready by now."

As if he had somehow heard what Hermione said, Harry knocked at the door at just about the same time as Ginny had finished tying the laces of her trainers. "No rush, but I'm ready whenever you two are."

Hermione opened the door. "We're ready. Aren't we, Ginny?"

"I am, loves." The three exchanged a swift hug before going down the stairs and out to the garden.

#

Hermione was quietly delighted as she made her way down the stairs. She was with her very best friends, and after a bit of gnome-throwing she and Ginny were going to start teaching Harry to swim. Even if that hadn't meant they'd all be undressed down to a single garment each, she'd have been looking forward to it. After all, it was just the sort of nice, friendly thing she'd always dreamt of doing with someone. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that she'd always dreamt of having someone who'd do such things with her?

In any case, it was the stuff of dreams. She'd had fantasies of spending long, lazy summer days with Harry ever since they first became friends, and adding their Ginny into the mix had only added another way in which the reality was far better than any fantasy.

Ginny looked adorab... very nice in her green swimming costume. Her hips were definitely beginning to swell a bit, and Hermione had the feeling that in as few as three or four years it might be hard for anyone who didn't actually know to say which of them was the older one. That made her happy. It would be nice to not have anyone thinking of Ginny as their surrogate younger sister who was only tagging along, but as simply Harry Potter and Hermione Granger's very best and dearest friend.

Hermione and Harry already knew that, of course, and so did Ginny, but Hermione liked the idea of everyone else knowing it as well. Ron might have trouble getting the fact through his head, but that was just how Ron was about things. The Twins seemed to understand it, and even Percy showed signs of comprehension, although it was always hard to tell with him as he seemed to be spending most of his time either writing letters or reading the sort of books about political and legal history that even Hermione found dry. She thought she'd seen him talking rather often with Penelope Clearwater, the Ravenclaw girls' prefect for his year, and she wondered if he was writing to her.

That said, Hermione had also heard Padma and Parvati giggling together about how much time Penelope spent with Audrey Smythe, the captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch side, but Hermione didn't see why that would stop Percy and Penelope being close to each other. She'd seen Percy and Audrey working together in the library, even when Penelope wasn't with them. They might all three of them be very good friends, much as Harry and Hermione and Ginny were.

If they were, she was very happy for them.

#

Even the garden gnomes seemed to be enjoying the nice warm day. A dozen or so of the ugly little potato-looking creatures were sunning themselves when the threesome stepped out into the garden.

"The sooner we're done chucking this lot, the sooner we can bathe! Let's get them!" Ginny shouted happily as she seized the first one she came to, swung it three times round her head, and launched it over the hedge.

Harry had to pause for a moment and marvel at her. She'd been so painfully shy that first day he met her, squeaking and hiding and not meeting his eyes. It was amazing how much difference getting to know somebody could make in how one saw them. He wondered if he and Hermione would have become good friends with Ginny so quickly if it hadn't been for the Bundling Charm, or if it would have taken months of being at Hogwarts together for Ginny to become comfortable enough to really get to know them. Well, it didn't matter. What counted was that the three of them were the best of friends. Even without the Charm, he felt certain that they would have become this way in time.

He looked over at Hermione, who seemed to be caught up in marvelling at Ginny as well. Their eyes met, and they smiled at each other. "Come on, love," she said, "let's join our Ginny."

"Let's." He grabbed a gnome, whirled it in a circle through the air to disorientate it properly, and then bowled it like a cricket ball. Might as well get a bit of use out of all the misery I had to go through in games at St. Grogory's School. He laughed at the absurdity of it.

Hermione looked away from the gnome she was about to throw. "What's funny, love?"

"I was just thinking about how good I actually had to become at cricket in order to make sure I wasn't playing better than a miserable git like my cousin. That's called irony, isn't it?"

Hermione giggled. "It is! And that's pretty fun--ow!" The garden gnome in her hand had bitten her. She dropped it and clutched her wrist.

Harry wanted to destroy the gnome, to obliterate it, to wipe it off the face of the Earth. Nothing and no one was allowed to harm his girls. If he'd had a wand, he was sure he would've been able to cast some ferocious combat spell without even needing to have it taught him. As it was, he'd have to use his hands and feet, which just meant the job would take longer.

But before he could move to carry out his will, Ginny, who was a little closer to Hermione, snatched the beast by the back of the neck and shook it so hard that he wondered if it might fall into pieces on the spot. "You bit of rubbish, you worthless vermin, you hateful little bastard, I'll show you what happens to gnomes that hurt our Hermione." That was just as good as punishing the gnome himself.

"It's all right, loves. I'm not even bleeding, really. It only surprised me, that's all. See?" Hermione held up her hand. There were teeth-marks on her wrist, it was true, but the skin wasn't broken. "Please don't kill it, darling."

"All right, love, if you'd prefer it that way. But I hope you don't mind if I teach it a lesson?"

Hermione nodded. "Go ahead, love."

Ginny tossed the stunned gnome in the air and caught it. Then she spun in a circle and hurled it into the orchard. Harry couldn't help wincing at the sound of the gnome's lumpy body impacting a tree trunk at high speed. Not that he minded the creature that had bitten Hermione getting hurt, but the sound was much like that of a Bludger hitting somebody during a Quidditch match against Slytherin. "Um... I'm sorry if that was too violent, Hermione."

"No, it's fine. I know they can survive being flung into a tree. Thank you, love. Thank you for caring about me."

Ginny hugged Hermione, and Harry hugged both girls. "Should we get some salve to put on it, Hermione, or ask Mum to cast a charm on it? Even if it doesn't break the skin, a gnome bite still hurts."

"It's all right, love. I'll be fine. No need for any of your mother's potions or healing charms."

"Should I kiss it, to make it better?" Ginny's voice was no more than a murmur, and Harry wondered if she was actually conscious of the fact that she was speaking out loud. She blushed, as if she'd realised they could hear her.

"Oh, that would be nice... I mean, of course you may, love."

Softly, slowly, Ginny took a grip of Hermione's hand and raised the other girl's wrist to her lips. She planted a light kiss on the marks. Harry's breath caught in his throat.

"Thank you." They were alone, but Hermione whispered the words as if they'd been in a crowded room and trying not to draw attention to themselves.

"May I?" He was whispering, himself. It seemed appropriate, somehow.

"If... if you'd like to, love."

"Of course I would." He wasn't sure what the right word was for the little thrill that ran through him at kissing the same spot on Hermione's skin that their Ginny had just kissed, or if there even was a word, but he knew it had something to do with how happy he was, with how happy they all were, and that was all that mattered.

They held each other for a few more minutes. At last, Hermione stirred, and shook herself slightly, not as if she wanted to be separated from her friends' embrace but as if she were trying to wake herself, and them. "Well, I suppose we should finish with the de-gnoming so we can bathe, shouldn't we, loves?"

They kissed each others' cheeks, let go, and went back to work. There was something really enjoyable about de-gnoming with the girls, beyond the simple pleasures of being with his best friends and doing a simple chore that was half a game and didn't carry any threat of punishment if he didn't do it to his relatives' satisfaction. It was nice to watch as they picked up the gnomes and threw them. Ginny was graceful, which was natural as she'd been doing it all her life. Hermione was a bit less comfortable with it, but she seemed to be getting more and more practised at the business of making gnomes dizzy and throwing them out of the garden. It was nice to watch her quiet pleasure in her own improvement. And it was nice to see the gentle smile on her face as she watched him and Ginny. For that matter, it was nice to see Ginny's smile as she watched him and Hermione.

He checked the gnome holes. There weren't any more of them coming out. "I think that's the last of them, loves."

Hermione scrunched up her nose, the way she sometimes did when she was thinking. "I do wonder why they always come out to see what's going on whenever we're de-gnoming. You'd think they'd realise we're throwing them out of the garden, and learn to hide in their holes when they hear the commotion."

Harry shrugged. "Ron says they're, and I quote, 'dumber than potatoes'."

"Then again, my brother hasn't much right to talk." Ginny laced her fingers with his and reached out with her other hand to take Hermione's arm. "Luna thinks they actually like being shaken up and thrown, and her dad says they're using us to help them do some sort of vast species-wide magical ritual that we'll never understand."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Oh? That's really interesting. Gnomes don't seem very likely to be that way, but I have to admit I'd never thought about whether other sorts of creatures than the ones we recognise as being people, like Goblins and humans and Veelas and centaurs and so on, might do actual, systematic magic."

"Well, Mister Lovegood's kind of, well, he thinks of things nobody else ever would imagine, except maybe for Luna. I suppose it could be, but I don't know if the gnomes are really that... maybe not smart, but organised. Anyhow, Dad thinks none of them can bear the thought of anyone else getting to see something interesting and them missing it themselves. Mum thinks that they're just clever enough to realise that as long as we can catch them and throw them we'll feel as if we're doing something, and that way we'll not get a Jarvey or a Crup and deal with them decisively."

There had been a time when Harry wouldn't have asked, but the girls had a way of never making him feel stupid when he admitted he didn't know something already. "What are those?"

"A Jarvey's sort of like a ferret, only they're bigger and they talk. Not that what they say makes any sense--it's sort of random insults, mostly. Aunt Muriel's got one called Polly, and she once called Ron and me 'Ungrateful badly-bred half-savage blackguards,' but every other Jarvey I've ever seen just swore."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Do you think your aunt taught her that?"

"Could be. Or maybe she just knows that Aunt Muriel would make her into soup if she heard any swears out of her. Which might mean they understand what they're saying, after all. Or maybe Aunt Muriel just made a lot of Jarvey soup, until she finally found one that didn't know any bad words? I could see her doing that, to be honest."

"I hope not. So, a Crup is sort of like a magical Jack Russell terrier, right? I love Jack Russells. One of my neighbours has one, and my cousin and her friend have three Welsh Corgis, and they're brilliant as well. I've always sort of wanted a dog, but my dad's allergic so we can't. One of my books said that people who're allergic to cats mostly aren't allergic to Kneazles. Do you think it might work that way with Crups?"

Ginny hugged Hermione round the shoulders. "I don't know, love, but I'm afraid... well, I'm told they don't like Muggles, so it might be a problem to have one with your family. I don't know if it's really true, but it's what everyone says."

Harry hugged Hermione from the other side. "Some of my neighbour Mrs. Figg's cats almost seem to think they're dogs. They fetch things for her all the time, and some of them even make noises almost as if they're barking. Maybe you could have a cat that's like them. I know it wouldn't be the same, but..."

"Kneazles can act like that," Ginny said. "I'm told my great grandfather had one that even ran with the hounds. One of our Prewett cousins has a portrait of the two of them. We were visiting them last summer, and Ron wouldn't go near it. He said Scabbers was terrified."

Harry couldn't help but laugh, especially given that Ginny and Hermione were laughing as well. "Ron thinks Scabbers can't tell the difference between a portrait and a real live cat?"

"I don't think even Scabbers is that stupid, but Ron can be a bit... overprotective? He'd throw a fit if any of us got one, but I think it would be neat to have a cat."

Hermione turned her head so the girls were almost nose to nose. "I've thought about getting a kitten next year. If I do, you can share him or her with me. And you can as well, of course, Harry."

"And we'll all share Hedwig. Or maybe I should say that we'll all belong to her? I think that's how she looks at it already."

"She and the cat can share custody of us," Hermione said. "She'll take our bacon, and the cat will have all our kippers, and we'll subsist on the eggs and toast and porridge that they leave us."

"I can't imagine a breakfast I'd like better." Harry truly couldn't. A breakfast with his family--Ginny and Hermione, Hedwig and a purring cat--in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, or better yet in a little cottage that would belong just to the three of them, would be perfect. Not that the Burrow wasn't wonderful, but if they had a home of their own he could cook for his girls. He couldn't imagine a better revenge than using the skills he'd learnt at the Dursleys to take care of his best friends. The threesome squeezed each other a little closer, as if the girls were thinking about the same thing.

After a long moment, Ginny stirred. "Well, that's the gnomes done with. Want to go down to the place where Luna and I like to bathe? It's a bend in the river, where the water's nearly still and it's not too deep. It's very private as well."

"I'd love to," Hermione whispered.

"Same here." Harry gave the two witches a final squeeze. They picked up their towels from the doorstep and, hand in hand in hand, went out the garden gate and headed down the path to the riverside.

#

Ginny was trying not to think about what it would actually be like to take her clothes off in front of Harry and Hermione. She knew it wasn't the same thing as if she'd only had underwear on underneath her jeans and t-shirt, of course. The swimming costume counted as actual clothes. She understood that. It covered more of her than her underwear did, and she and Hermione sometimes even talked face to face once they both had that basic layer of clothing on, although of course they went on with putting on the rest of their clothes as they were chatting. But still... it was both a wonderful and a terrifying thing to think about. And there wasn't a Bundling Charm here to distract her from thinking about it.

Maybe it actually would have been better if the solution for the three of them to bathe together had been Mum casting a Bundling Charm on the riverside, instead of Hermione's mum getting them clothes they could bathe in? Ginny didn't know if the walls and ceiling and floor of a room were necessary to anchor the Charm on, or how much space it would cover even if it could be cast out in the open air. But she had noticed that the Charm seemed to take away some of the awkward thoughts along with the naughty ones.

Of course, her mother would never do that. It wouldn't be proper. Snuggling fully clad in their pyjamas was one thing, but two girls and a boy being completely unclothed together was another, even with the Bundling Charm, even if they didn't touch each other. Privately, Ginny knew that they'd not do anything they weren't ready for, and wouldn't have done even without a Bundling Charm. She had a sneaking suspicion that Mum and Dad felt much the same, even if they'd never say it out loud, but it wouldn't look right to other people, especially her brothers.

It was for the same reason that Harry continued to change his clothes in the bathroom. There was no real reason that he couldn't turn his back on Hermione and Ginny and get dressed and undressed just as the girls did when it was just the two of them, but Ron would be horrified, and Percy would think it very improper, and the Twins would never leave off teasing them about it.

Oh well, none of that mattered right now. Ginny and Hermione were going to be teaching their Harry how to swim, and that simple, brilliant, and generally altogether excellent thing made up for all the awkwardness, all the nerves, and everything else. "We're just about there, loves. We'll turn left here, and go down between the trees."

Ginny loved watching their faces, and it was especially nice to see Harry's expression when they'd made their way down the bank to the edge of the river. "This is fabulous! I've only ever seen anything like this in pictures in books, before. Thank you. Thank you so much."

Ginny hugged him, and Hermione embraced him from the other side. She felt her eyes tearing up slightly, and Hermione's looked much the same. The girls rubbed noses, and nuzzled Harry's cheek. "Thank you, Harry. Thank you. And thank you, Hermione."

"Yes. Thank you, Harry. And thank you, Ginny. So... shall we bathe?"

"That sounds good." Harry sounded just as uncertain as Ginny felt. For a moment, Ginny wondered if she and Hermione could take off his shirt for him. And then Ginny and Harry could take off Hermione's, and Hermione and Harry could take off Ginny's. They had swimming costumes on underneath, and the shirts would be coming off in any event, so it would be all right, wouldn't it?

No. That's a little bit too much, right now. Even though it sounds really, really nice. Maybe someday... The threesome gave each other a final squeeze, and turned their backs. "We can hang our clothes on that tree over there, loves. That's what Luna and I usually do." With that said, Ginny slipped her feet our of her trainers. Should she take her shirt off first, or her jeans? She stood frozen for a moment. Was that a rustle as Harry stripped off his shirt, or perhaps it was Hermione?

At last, she reached down and pulled her shirt over her head. You've still got clothes on, silly. Everything that matters is covered up. Harry's the one who doesn't even have a shirt on. And these are your Harry and your Hermione. You're not on a beach somewhere with dozens of strangers, the way Hermione was in those photos from her holiday. If she can do that, you can do this. She unbuttoned her jeans and let them fall, picked them up and folded them. "Is it all right if I turn round, loves?"

"I'm ready when you two are." Was Harry's voice a little nervous as well? She didn't think it was only wishful thinking on her part.

"I'm ready, loves. Let's do it." It made sense that Hermione would be less nervous, since she was used to swimming costumes and wearing nothing more, even when there were boys about. Then again, she'd confessed that the thought of bathing outdoors in the nude, the way Ginny and Luna always had done, intimidated her, even if it were only with girls. We're all nervous, but we're also all together. It will be fine. More than that, it will be fun!

They turned about. Ginny had already seen Hermione in her swimming costume, of course. But seeing her like this, streamside, with Harry beside her, that was a delight almost beyond all bearing. As for Harry, well, he was Harry. He was skinny, pale, and perfect. Ginny had seen her brothers and father shirtless of course, since on hot days they sometimes stripped to the waist if they were working in the garden. She knew that boys had pink nipples, not all that different to her own ones, or at least to how they'd been up until some months ago when she started to develop little bumps behind them. She knew that eventually boys got hair on their chests and bellies. But somehow she'd always thought that was a thing that only even started to happen when they were grown men, as it wasn't really noticeable on her brothers, except for Bill and Charlie, and that had only begun to be true last summer.

Harry, on the other hand, already had a few strands of black hair around his navel and trailing down to his waistband. Well, of course he does. His hair's black, and his skin's white, so it shows. No doubt Ron and the Twins are much the same, but you can't see it because their hair's red and their skin's kind of pink, or redder than that if they've got a sunburn. And of course you don't really look at them. Why would you? She felt a bit stupid for not realising that at once. But then Harry smiled at her, and she forgot about feeling stupid. She forgot about everything except her Harry and Hermione, and how much she loved them.

Without even taking the time for conscious thought, the threesome hugged each other. "You... you look really nice. Both of you," Harry whispered.

"So do you. Both of you. Well, I already knew you did, Hermione, and I suppose I knew Harry would, but... Oh, sorry, I'm babbling, aren't I?"

"It's fine, love. Just fine." Hermione brushed a lock of Ginny's hair back from her face. "You both look lovely." She giggled. "Although I suppose you might prefer to look handsome, Harry. Which you do, very much."

Ginny didn't think about the fact that she'd just been hugging Harry with only the single thin layer of her swimming costume to separate the skin of her chest and the skin of his until after they'd let each other go. That was fine. It was probably better not to think too much about it right now. Especially when there were more important things, like the three of them getting down in the water.

Holding hands, they waded in. "It's waist deep right here, loves. It only gets to maybe about chest deep at most along this stretch, and that's over there towards the opposite bank. And there's only a little bit of current, just enough to stop the water going stale. Dad says it's because of the shape of the bend."

"That sounds perfect. It was about that deep in the pool I learnt to swim in. I think I started out with learning to float in the water. Does that sound all right with you, Harry?"

"Sure. I can do that, sort of, already. Piers and Dudley didn't get the idea of trying to drown me until we'd started in with paddling about a bit. I don't know if they were too scared of the water themselves before, or if they were waiting until they were sure the teacher wasn't paying enough attention to stop them having their fun."

"If I ever get the chance, Harry, I'd like to teach those stupid vile boys a couple of lessons about the water, myself." Hermione grinned like a hungry wolf. Ginny liked the look on her.

She expected her own expression was about the same. "Fred and George say they're working on making a bar of soap that turns into a shark when it gets wet enough. The teeth wouldn't actually break the skin, being made out of soap, but they'd pinch, and I reckon two or three dozen would give them a nice little scare. I suppose the Statue of Secrecy would be a issue, but as I recall they were complaining that the sharks kept dissolving into a slick of soap after about a minute, which would be just enough time for some fun with no evidence left behind, wouldn't it?"

"It's all right, loves. I'm here, now, and they're in Surrey. It's not worth the two of you getting in trouble for using magic out of school."

"I know," Hermione said. "But someday... maybe when we've finished with school?"

"I'm sure that by then my brothers will have all sorts of interesting things for us to use."

"It's still not worth your getting into trouble, but thank you for, well, for caring."

Hearing that, Ginny had to hug him again. And of course Hermione had to hug both of them.

Some minutes later, they let each other go. It was time for Harry to try floating. "Floating face down was easier than on my back, if I remember correctly, so maybe I'll try that first?"

Hermione smiled and squeezed his hand. "Whatever you want, love."

Ginny took his other hand. "It was that way for me as well." She could tell he was a bit nervous. Of course he is. Anybody would be, if all their lessons in swimming had been in the same pool with a pair of bullies who hated them.

Over the next hour or so, Harry progressed from floating to an adequate dogpaddle. Ginny thought he'd be swimming comfortably before they had to leave for Hogwarts. Afterwards, he sat on the bank for a rest, and the girls took a little time to stroke back and forth across their little bend in the river. It was a delight to watch Hermione swimming, Ginny discovered. She wasn't surprised. It was a delight to watch Hermione doing all sorts of things.

Hermione swam close to where she was standing, chest deep in the water, and stood. The two girls smiled at each other for a moment, and waved at Harry, who waved back. Then Hermione tapped Ginny gently on the nose. "Tag, love. You're it." She spun about and swam away, quick as an otter.

"I'll get you for that, sweetheart!" Ginny dived after her. The girls met under the water, where Ginny tagged Hermione on the knee. Hermione tagged her foot before she was able to get away, but she managed to tag Hermione's arm when they both had to rise for air. That was enough underwater tag for the moment, because Harry was sat on the bank. The girls converged on him and hugged him.

"It was nice watching you. You're both... you swim really well, and you look lovely in the water. The way you move... it's like you're flowing from place to place, almost like how the water moves. I've seen otters move sort of like that. It's beautiful." Harry looked concerned, as if he thought he might have said something he shouldn't have said.

Ginny knew she had to do something, so she kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you, love. You're right, Hermione swims beautifully."

Hermione kissed him from the other side. "Yes. Thank you, love. Thank you, both of you. And you swim beautifully, yourself, Ginny."

"Thanks, love. And I'm looking forward to you getting in more practice swimming, yourself, because I feel sure you'll have a beautiful form as soon as you're feeling a little more comfortable. After all, you look wonderful on a broom."

"Speaking of which, are you ready to get back in the water, Harry?"

"Sure." He gathered the girls into his arms. Ginny hugged her best friends, feeling almost unbearably happy. She was looking forward to the next few weeks, maybe even more than she was looking forward to Hogwarts.

#

Hermione had Ginny and Harry and herself fully packed and waiting with their trunks ten minutes before Mr. Weasley had said they should be ready. There had been times in the past when Harry had thought she was a bit bossy, but he'd always forgiven her, and somehow he didn't mind at all anymore. She'd only ever meant to help her friends, and he felt that over the summer she'd learnt to be very kind about how she did it. Harry hadn't been very unpacked, anyhow, so it ended up with the two of them helping Ginny. She pulled them both into a hug before they carried the last trunk downstairs, and kissed their cheeks so enthusiastically that they nearly touched lip to lip.

The twins showed up a minute before, and Percy was directly on time. Then they sat and waited for what felt like a small eternity as Ron and his things dribbled outside in piles and lumps of clothes and books more or less randomly intermingled with Potions supplies, boxes of quills, and broom maintenance gear. By the time everyone and their possessions were loaded into the Weasleys' old Ford Anglia, the same car Ron and the Twins had flown to Little Whinging on their rescue mission in July, they were running late by nearly an hour.

"If we miss the Express, will they even Sort me?" Ginny whispered, so quietly that only Harry and Hermione could hear her. "I don't need to know how they do it--I know it's tradition not to tell, and I know Ron's telling great big porkies when he says I've got to fight a troll--but I'm so worried they'll say I've got to wait for another year. I'll miss you both so much, I don't know if I'll be able to stand it."

"Of course they'll Sort you," Hermione whispered. "And if there's any trouble at all, I'll sneak you into Gryffindor Tower and you'll sleep in my bed, and Harry and I will teach you all the First Year lessons. And if anybody says anything, I'll tell them you're my darling pet Ginny that I got over the summer. I'm allowed a pet, aren't I? I suppose that if Harry didn't have Hedwig we could offer you a choice of whose pet you'd like to be, but as it is it looks as if I'm the lucky one. And it's not as if I'd not let my very best friend and my very favourite pet spend lots of time together as well."

"But... what if they say I'm not an owl or a cat or a toad?"

"Oh, that's easy," Harry said. "Wasn't there a set of cat's ears and a tail with Sticking Charms on in one of the Twins' catalogues? We'll send Hedwig with a rush order. She likes you, so I'm sure she'll have them for us by the time we reach Hogwarts."

Hermione winked. "You'll make an absolutely precious kitten, and I know Professor McGonagall likes cats. I'm sure she'll let you in the tower."

Ginny grinned, blushing a bright red. She squeezed Harry's hand so tightly it almost hurt, and he could see she was squeezing Hermione's hand just the same. "Ron would have a cow if I kissed you here where he could see," she whispered, "and that's the only reason why I'm not. But as soon as we're alone, you're both getting kisses."

"As long as we can kiss you as well, love," Hermione said.

"Of course."