After a quick early supper of sandwiches and pumpkin juice in the little faculty kitchen, Ginny made her way to Hermione's office.
"Professor? You in? It's Ginny," she asked, knocking softly at the door.
"I'm in, and since when did you call me 'Professor?' School's out, door's open."
Ginny pushed the door open and entered.
"Perhaps I was being ironical," she said, grinning. "Or perhaps I was letting you know I have Very Important Business to discuss." She pulled a chair just far enough from Hermione's desk that she could sit and prop her feet on the desk without disturbing its contents.
"Looks like I'll be going to Friday's OWLS meeting, too."
Without looking up from the ledger she was writing in, Hermione shifted an inkwell to give Ginny's feet more space. Some things it was useless to protest. "I'm so sorry. Must attend one meeting per year to meet membership requirements, I take it?"
Ginny snorted. "Like I care about membership in the Old Wankers society. I'm going to support you." She paused. "Also, Pucey invited me."
Hermione raised one eyebrow. "Somehow I doubt attending the Literary Society achieved pride of place on your crowded calendar until Pucey came into it. What's he up to?"
Hermione Granger's cloistered laboratory of a life had produced an effect all but magical: one could almost see her thoughts churning. "He's donated to Camp Hogwarts, and he's sending Charles and Ellie. Tweaking the Ministry, I presume. I saw you two talking at the pub after the Quidditch match, and I don't mind telling you I did not care one jot for the look on his face -- but I suppose Angie would tear him limb from limb if he strayed, so that can't be it. Or does he think I can't be allowed in public without a keeper?"
"Best guess?" Ginny laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them. "Pucey is a fan of sport. He'd know, then, that the best games arise when the teams are evenly matched. So far he's pretended that his reason for inviting me, and my reason for attending, have nothing to do with you; but he did cop to twisting the serpent's tail for his own amusement."
"Which serpent, though? The Ministry, or Malfoy?"
"Ah, but why pick just one if you can get both at once?" Ginny replied in an eerily Pucey-esque tone, and steepled her fingers.
In her own voice, she continued, "Which reminds me, now that you've got the camp all but paid for, have you decided what to do about Malfoy's pit of vipers?" Her tone suggested that she had a thought or two of her own on that subject.
Hermione grimaced. "They're too important to Hogwarts to turn away, but their involvement is raising eyebrows at the Ministry. I don't care to let them think they run the show here -- that is why I made sure I would not need them -- but I shan't snub them on the Ministry's say-so, either. On the whole, I am minded to reserve some small space in my budget for them, not let their largesse extend past that, and otherwise treat them much like any of the others who have donated, save of course for extra security detail at the exhibition. Yes, go ahead, tell me what a fool I am."
"No, actually," replied Ginny with an encouraging smile, "that's almost exactly what I'd've done. Except I might've taken more pleasure in the eyebrow-raising at the Ministry." Her smile grew a bit impish. "The outpouring of support for the camp does send a certain message to the Ministry, doesn't it? I rather suspect that's why Malfoy and his cronies want to be involved, actually."
"Well, and that's the chasm on the other side of the rope bridge, isn't it?" Hermione sighed. "Used as a stepping-stone to respectability for a crew that's had their day in the sun but won't let anyone else share it. You'll have to help me keep my temper, Ginny. They'll be worse than Draco, I shouldn't wonder."
"I'll do what I can, but -- have you heard this month's lecture topic?" Ginny frowned.
"Oh, yes. Malfoy told me, doubtless lest I bring the building crashing down around their ears. Trelawney's class won't be a patch on it for sheer unmitigated gall. I plan to fail to listen most assiduously."
"I'm trying to decide whether to ignore it, or whether to ask a lot of annoyingly pointed questions." Ginny smirked, but then regarded Hermione with a softer expression. "But perhaps my trying to rile people wouldn't be so good for your blood pressure?"
"Suit yourself, just please don't drag me into it. You're entitled to be there, Professor Pureblood. I'm only there on sufferance, and I imagine not a great deal of that."
Ginny rolled her eyes a little at the sobriquet. "I'll play it by ear, then. I've never been to one of these meetings; maybe it'll turn out not to be completely full of insufferable arses." She sounded dubious.
She dropped her feet from the desk to the floor and leaned a little forward in her chair. "What else can I do to help you, Mi?" she asked earnestly.
"With what? The meeting? Well, you're as entitled to answer questions and canvass for donors as I am. Just don't promise them the moon and stars, and it'll be fine. Oh, and leave when I do. Ron is meeting me outside, and we're meeting Tonks at the River's End for drinks. I hereby decree that you are invited."
"Now that is the best thing I've heard yet about this meeting." Ginny grinned. "We'll probably all need a good stiff drink by the end of it. I may have to find a way to lose my 'date' first, though."
"As shall I. I presume drowning them in the punchbowl is a faux pas?"
"I think it's considered poor form, unless we convince them to drown themselves. Perhaps if we told them we were leaving them for slightly better-looking options?"
"Might work on Pucey; not so sure about Malfoy." Hermione flipped a page in her ledger and tucked several slips of parchment into a folder before picking up the next batch. "Anything else, Ginny?"
"Just one thing." Ginny fixed Hermione with a look somewhere between 'concerned' and 'stern'. "You're remembering to sleep, yes?"
Hermione met the look square-on. Her face was harassed and yes, tired, but her eyes were clear. "Yes, and eat too. Tell your daft brother I am behaving myself as he would wish."
Ginny's eyebrows arched. "He may be daft, but he's not the only one that worries about you, you know. You start looking too run-down, I am prepared to take drastic action. I may have to... bake something." She wiggled her fingers ominously.
Hermione recoiled in mock horror. "You wouldn't! Why, Remus would have a conniption! Poppy would ready the burn ward! The very house elves would go on strike! For the sake of Hogwarts, Ginny, no baking!"
Ginny smiled in mock-smugness and shook a finger at Hermione. "Well, now that you understand what's at stake, young lady, I trust you'll take care of yourself."
She stood as if to go, but at the last minute, on impulse, she leaned across the desk and planted a sisterly kiss on Hermione's forehead. "I mean it."
Hermione laid her quill down, stood up, and hugged Ginny as best she could over the desk. "I've better friends than I deserve," she said soberly. "And I'm proud you're one of them."
"You're part of my family-by-choice, love," said Ginny, returning the hug. "Which is why I get to be a right pain in your arse. See what you missed out on by not having siblings?" She released Hermione from the embrace and grinned at her, eyes twinkling.
"Mum had her reasons," Hermione said tolerantly. "And it's not either like having siblings when all I get are the good bits."
"Maybe I should get Fred and George to leave dungbombs under your pillow, then," Ginny offered, her grin deepening. "That's a not-so-good bit. They still do it, too."
She moved toward the door. "Right. I should leave you to your work, then. If I don't see you before then, good luck with Malfoy, and I'll see you at the thing, yeah?"
"Exactly what I mean. Yes, I'll see you -- and don't let Pucey overreach himself, or what I'll do to him won't be pretty."
"I don't see any of that sort of overreaching in my near future, alas," Ginny replied, grinning. "Though if Pucey tries anything untoward -- well, I'm also skilled in Defence Against the Masculine Arts. But if I do need back-up, you'll be the first to know...."
Last modified: 12 January 2008