"Where are you going?" George asked me as I walked past the dining hall where breakfast had just begun.
"I need to go change," I said. I had wanted to get out of my workout clothes. Even though most people wore muggle clothes on the weekends, they still looked mildly presentable. No one really wore any kind of pajamas or sweats to meals, and I didn't really feel like drawing any unnecessary attention to myself.
"Why? What you're wearing is fine for breakfast," he said.
"Just let me at least change into some jeans. You guys go sit down, I'll only be a couple of minutes," I said before beginning to walk up to the dorms.
"Fine, if you have someone to impress at breakfast," George said teasingly.
I flipped him off, not turning around from my walk back to my room.
Once I had arrived at the room, I quickly changed into some big jeans and a tighter dark brown sweater. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do for the rest of the day, but I assumed that that would be suitable for whatever it was that I would be doing.
I quickly washed my face, brushed my hair and threw on some (much needed) concealer and mascara before leaving the room to go meet with everyone for breakfast.
"Y/n!" Ginny shouted once she had seen me enter the room. "Come sit here!". She scooted over a bit so that there was room to sit between her and Ron, and I walked over to her and plopped myself down next to her.
"What?" I asked.
"Do you have any plans for today?" She asked.
"No," I said with a hint of unsureness.
" 'Mione and I want to go have a little picnic at that little spot that we found that looks over the water. Will you come?".
"Sure!" I said with a smile. "That sounds like so much fun".
"Yay!" Ginny said with excitement while clapping her hands together. "We haven't done anything with just the three of us in a while".
. "I know, "It'll be fun," I said while returning her smile.
" 'Mione wanted to bring homework, but I told her that I forbid it," she said quietly and close to my ear so that Hermione couldn't hear her.
"Good," I said quietly back, relieved that I could finally hang out with Hermione without school work being an issue.
"But now I owe her a day of studying with her, so say goodbye to one of my upcoming saturdays".
I laughed at how miserable she looked to have to spend part of a weekend actually doing her homework for a change. "Well, I'll go with you and we'll make it fun".
She smiled at me gratefully before going back to eating her eggs.
~~~~~~~~
We spent a couple of hours in our room before we decided to go have our picnic. Hermione worked on an extra credit essay, Gin had left to go practice quidditch with Harry for a little bit, and I wrote letters to my parents.
After the first few weeks of the school year, I always began to miss my parents a little bit, and this year was no different. Even though both of my parents could be annoying (my mom in particular), I grew up with just the two of them. Sure, I had Sophie for a while before she moved and maybe a couple of other friends, but the truth was that I spent my entire childhood as an only child with my parents as my closest friends. I was starting to miss family dinners and movie nights, and I was just missing my mom and dad.
I was happy that I had such great friends to distract me, and I was excited to go spend the day with Hermione and Ginny. No matter how off I ever felt, they could always get me feeling better.
I wrote to my parents, telling them all about what I had done all year. Quidditch games, going to Hogsmeade, and other things that I had done since the time I saw them last. I left out a couple of things though - they didn't need to know about that detention or about the couple of parties that were thrown.
Right as I was finishing up writing it, Ginny walked in from her quidditch practice.
"I'm just going to get changed, but once I'm done, can we go?" She asked while taking off her shoes. "I'm starving".
"Yeah," I said while signing my name and sealing up the letter. I set it aside and would have to remember to go bring it to the front office to get delivered. I didn't have a bird to mail it for me, which would 't even matter because owls are useless when it comes to bringing mail to muggle towns.
"I'm ready whenever you guys are, we just need to go get some food from the kitchen," Hermione said.
"Oh yeah, how are we even getting food? I thought that we weren't allowed to bring it out of the dining hall?" I asked. I hadn't even thought about what we were going to eat for lunch. Not that it really mattered, I wasn't really hungry anyways.
Hermione grinned. "I'm friends with Dottie, the house elf in the kitchen, and she said that she would make us some little sandwiches and stuff. Trust me, they'll be good, she's an amazing cook".
"How the hell did you become buddies with a house elf?" Ginny asked, walking out of the bathroom in jeans and a bra on a hunt for a shirt.
"Well, I was down there talking to her about her experience as a house elf, you know, for that paper I was working on for the 'Witches of Today' contest".
"Huh?" I asked, having no clue what she was talking about.
"The thing I entered last year? The article about house elf rights? Where if I won, my article would be included in 'Witches of Today?'".
Ginny walked out of the closet, now clothed in a sweater. " 'Mione, what the hell are you talking about?" she asked, sounding just as confused as I was.
"Oh you guys are useless friends," Hermione said with an eye roll. "I won the contest! My article was in the paper! How do you guys not remember that? That was like my biggest achievement last year!". She seemed to be pretty mad with us, and rightfully so.
"Ummm... " Ginny spoke while guiltily rubbing the back of her neck. "I kind of space out when you talk about essays and stuff like that. Sorry".
I nodded in guilty agreement with Ginny, feeling horrible that I hadn't paid attention. "That's great that you won though! That's so cool!".
"Mmhm," Hermione said, unimpressed. "Well, anyways, I was just asking her some simple questions that I could quote in my paper, and we got to talking about house elf rights which she is apparently a big activist for. I thought all house elves were all timid like Dobby, but she is in fact very smart and progressive," She said with a proud look. "I told her that I was actually writing an article about house elf rights and how they should be given more, and we talked all about it and actually became good friends. I used to go down and visit her every once in a while, how did you guys never notice?".
I made brief eye contact with Ginny, both of us knowing that we were fucked. "Uh, we're just stupid," I said. It wasn't really a lie.
"True," Hermione said with a quirk of her lip, telling me that she wasn't really mad that we didn't listen to her about her article. I really did feel bad. "Anyways," She continued. "Gin, if you're ready, we can just go head down and grab the food and go to the spot. It's not supposed to be too cold today, but you guys should probably bring an extra sweater just in case".
Ginny and I once again made secret eye contact behind Hermione's back. She was back to her motherly ways.
Once we had grabbed the food from the kitchens, we began to head over to the spot that we would be eating at.
"Which spot was it again?" I asked after we had been walking for a couple of minutes.
"It's that one on the top of the hill that looks over the water. We found it last year when we went on that walk, remember? It's just up here," She gestured to the top of what looked to be a pretty steep hill that I did not feel like climbing up in jeans.
I groaned loudly. "I don't want to climb up the hill," I whined.
""Oh, hush," Ginny said. "It's not bad and the view up there is spectacular. We can also go sit under that tree up there".
I nodded reluctantly and began to walk up. It really wasn't that hard, but I was out of shape, and also just lazy. It only took a couple of minutes to get to the top, and we reached the top of it, me panting a bit. When I looked at the view that the hill provided, any excess air from my already empty lungs was stripped away.
"Merlin, that's beautiful," I said in awe.
The hill was sitting at the edge of the huge lake that surrounded hogwarts. All that could be seen was the hills and valleys on the edge of the lake stretching on for miles against the blue of the clear sky. The water was a crystal blue that reflected the rolling green hills on the surface, and the sun bounced off of the water and made it look like it was sparkling. It truly was a sight to behold.
"It really is," Ginny said while looking at the water. "Now let's eat. I'm hungry".
I chuckled and nodded, turning to Hermione who had brought the basket that carried the blanket and food.
We laid out the big checkered blanket underneath the tree and Hermione brought out all of the food. She wasn't lying when she told us that the food would be good. There were all different kinds of finger sandwiches: ham and cheese, caprese, peanut butter and jelly; there was a little vegetable platter with different dipping sauces, a tray that had cheese, crackers and fruit on it, some pasta salad, a tray with pita bread, humus, and olives and some little bits of different deserts. It was like a mix of five different kinds of lunches.
"Woah," Ginny said once Hermione had brought out the last of the food. It had seemed never ending when Hermione kept bringing out tray after tray.
"I know," Hermione said, chuckling. "Dottie said that she didn't know what we were in the mood for so she whipped up a bunch of stuff. I didn't know that it would be this much".
"It all looks delicious," I said before sitting down on the blanket, my back against the tree.
They both sat down and Hermione handed us all little plates that she had somehow remembered to bring, and we all filled our plates. I grabbed some fruit and a little bit of pita and humus, I wasn't all that hungry.
"So," Ginny said after swallowing a bite of food. " 'Mione, what the hell is going on with you and Ron?".
I nodded at Ginny's question, curious to know the answer too.
Hermione just rolled her eyes. "Nothing".
I groaned, annoyed that she was still keeping up this charade. "Seriously, 'Mione? We're not in second year anymore, having a little crush isn't some huge deal. Tell us what's going on with you guys".
"I'm being serious, nothing. I'm not pretending that I don't have a crush on him, because I do. I have since last year after the triwizard tournament".
"Well, he obviously likes you too you know," Ginny said.
Hermione groaned and laid back so that her head was resting on my legs. "I know that, I think. I'm not oblivious, and Harry is always telling me about how much he talks about me and stuff like that. It's not that I think he doesn't like me back, it's just that he's so stupid! Sorry, Gin," She said, looking at Ginny with a bit of a guilty look, probably just remembering that that was her brother.
"No, he's an idiot, I know," Ginny said.
"I mean," Hermione continued while looking up at the leaves of the tree from my lap while I ran my fingers through her hair. "I'm always giving him these hints and giving him opportunities to do something about it, but he either doesn't understand or he's too afraid to do anything. I'm about to just give up on him".
"No! You cannot give up on him," I said sternly. "You like him, he obviously likes you, you are so close. We just have to figure something out".
"Yeah, and then you can be my sister in law!" Ginny said excitedly with a bite of sandwich in her mouth.
Hermione laughed at Ginny and said, "Yeah, right".
"Alright, Mission Romione ago," I said with faux seriousness. "How the hell do we get him to get his head out from under a rock?".
Hermione shrugged, obviously not too excited to continue her hunt for Ron that she had begun a year ago.
"Ooh! I know! Why don't you just ask him to the Yule Ball?" Ginny said. "He can't miss that if that qualifies as a hint, he's not that stupid".
"Yeah, I could," Hermione said with uncertainty. "But the girls aren't supposed to ask the guys. I know that I still could, but then if he said no it would be way too embarrassing. And I would have to see him every day. I don't want to ask".
"Ugh, pussy," Ginny murmerred under her breath. I kicked her with my leg and Hermione glared at her. Ginny looked at both of our angry expressions and gave a face as if to say 'what? It's true".
"If you really don't want to ask, we'll help you give even more signals than you normally do to him. And we can always get Harry to say something to Ron, he always listens to him".
"Yeah, okay," Hermione said. "Y/n, what about you? Anyone got your eye?" She asked while raising horribly cheesy eyebrows.
"No," I said, shutting her down. I really didn't like anyone at the moment, other than Blaise who I still found rather attractive whenever we passed in the hallway. I also thought about the kiss that Harry and I had shared the night before every once and awhile, but I couldn't tell if I liked him or not. He might have just been a great kisser.
"Other than that special friendship that you seem to share with my brothers," Ginny said teasingly. "I swear to Merlin, if you both start dating Weasley's I will go mad. One is enough".
"I'm not, I swear. You guys need to stop obsessing over that, we're just friends," I said with an eye roll. I really was starting to get annoyed at their obsession of the twins and me.
"We know, we know," Hermione said. "They're just so sweet to you, and it would just be really cute".
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Are they different with me?".
"Are you kidding?" Ginny asked with a scoff. "They're a pain in the ass with everyone, always claiming that they're 'testing out their pranks for future use'. It's just an excuse to use a pantsing jinx in public if you ask me. They're not like that with you, always holding open doors and bringing you food. It's quite obnoxious, really".
"They're a pain in my ass too," I defended, causing Ginny and Hermione to snort and share a knowing look. "What?" I asked, confused, not hearing the innuendo that they apparently heard.
"Nothing," Ginny said with a bit of a blush.
"You guys are so annoying," I said and threw a grape into my mouth.
For the rest of our lunch, we spoke about plans for the ball and what we were going to wear now that the date was creeping up on us in a few weeks.
While they were discussing what color dresses that they wanted, I couldn't help but think about what we had been talking about.
First of all, when they talked about me liking Fred and George, were they talking about both of them? How could they be okay with that? I mean, they were brothers for Merlin's sake. Even if I did like them, how could their own sister be okay with that? I didn't know what to think.
I also was curious to know if they really did treat me any differently than they did others. Did they like me like how 'Mione was always saying? I loved how sweet they were, but what if that was just because they had feelings for me? I didn't want to take advantage of that.
My head was swimming with thoughts while we finished up lunch, both of my friends words echoing in my ears.