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Reality Bites
By Trinka

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Category: Alternate Universe
Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom
Genres: Comedy
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 760
Summary: Ginny is persuaded to be on a Bachelor-type reality show against her better judgement. Who is the hunk all the women are fighting over? We know him. We love him. But in my story, Ginny's never met him. NOTE: If you think you'll hate this story, read it anyway! I hate reality shows too, you know! lol Trust me, you'll love it...I proclaim in as non-arrogant a way as possible... *sweat drop*
Hitcount: Story Total: 170384; Chapter Total: 6864







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Episode Thirty-One
Combustion and American Politics



Ginny waited for a response but got none. She knocked again. Still no answer. Humming a small “hello” she slowly pushed the door open, thinking Trista might be sleeping.


The room was empty. Trista was obviously not there.


“Bollocks,” grumbled Ginny. She needed to find Trista before she lost her nerve. Knocking on the door itself was enough to make Ginny’s heart hammer and it was even worse now, knowing she still had to wait.


Ginny went out to the alcove to wait for Trista to get back from wherever she was. Situating herself on one of the couches, Ginny willed herself to stay awake. Her sleep deprivation, however, won over her will, hands down.


She was jerked awake as someone landed heavily on the couch beside her. Trista sighed as she turned to look at Ginny. “Oh!” she exclaimed, guiltily. “I didn’t realize you were asleep! I’m so sorry.”


Yawning, Ginny smiled at her. “Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t going to fall asleep but my consciousness had other ideas.” She yawned again. “Where were you?”


Trista sighed again, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling as she did. “I tried to take your advice, but that Connie!” She growled in a most unladylike way, causing Ginny’s eyes to widen in disbelief. “I tried hiding from her, telling her I was going to take a nap, telling her I was in the shower — she actually walked into the bathroom with me, but I couldn’t very well strip with her standing there! Good grief she’s a stubborn woman.” She sighed again and slumped into the couch. “I sure hope you had more fun than I did.”


Ginny was suddenly having to swallow her heart, as it had lodged itself in her throat. “About that,” Ginny croaked. “There’s something I have to tell you.”


Trista turned serious as she looked at Ginny’s face. “You kissed him, didn’t you?”


“Oh Trista!” Ginny blurted out with a tearless sob. “I didn’t just kiss him! I snogged him. I’m so sorry! I’ll understand if you hate me. I didn’t want to. I mean, of course I wanted to; I was dying to! But I didn’t want to hurt you, so I tried not to but, my gosh, it’s hard to resist him and —” Ginny stopped talking abruptly as she saw the veritable steam coming out of Trista’s ears. Ginny was going to ask Trista how mad she was, but found that she now had absolutely no control over her voice.


Trista, however, didn’t seem to be having that problem at all. “You what?” she hissed. “I tell you last night that I kissed him and today you tell me the two of you MADE OUT? How am I supposed to respond to that? Come on, Ginny. I thought we were friends. How could you do this to me? I would have preferred if you’d kept it a secret. This was so tactless of you!”


Ginny had the urge to remind Trista that she had done the same thing last night, and as such, Ginny would also have preferred to be in the dark on the subject. She held her tongue however.


Trista’s hair started to catch on fire and Ginny looked down in surprise to see that she was literally holding her tongue. This surprise had just barely registered when Trista’s head exploded like a stick of dynamite, causing Ginny to sit up suddenly, which consequently also woke her up.


It had been a dream. Ginny sighed in relief then gasped anew as she heard a voice beside her. “Oh!” exclaimed Trista’s voice. “I didn’t realize you were sleeping.”


Deja’vu! Ginny thought in horror. She sat up very straight and looked cautiously at Trista to make sure that nothing was about to burst into flame as it had in her dream.


“What’s wrong, Ginevra?” Trista asked worriedly, convincing Ginny that she wasn’t dreaming again: Trista had called her Ginny in her dream.


“I have something I need to tell you, but I really don’t want to because I just had a dream that I told you and it didn’t go well.”


“How did I react to whatever it is you want to tell me?” Trista asked interestedly.


“You blew up. Literally. I mean, your head exploded.”


Trista tittered. “Well, I promise that won’t happen if you tell me.”


Ginny hesitated and Trista turned serious. “What is it?”


“Remember what you told me last night?” Ginny asked with trepidation.


“Of course.”


“Well…”


“Ginevra, did you and Harry kiss.”


“Yes. Yes, we kissed, but that isn’t all.”


Trista’s eyes widened. “You didn’t sleep with him, did you?” she whispered intensely.


“What? No. No, no, absolutely not!”


Trista laughed again, relieved. “You scared me there for a second. So, what did you do?”


“Wesnogged!” Ginny rushed the words.


“Ah,” Trista said without expression. “I can’t honestly say that I’m not upset about that, but I was rather expecting that to happen when I came on this show. After all, the Bachelor usually makes out with most of the girls and often sleeps with them as well. I thought I had hardened myself to the idea, but I can admit that it still hurts a little.”


“I’m so sorry Trista. I wasn’t going to because I didn’t want to hurt you, but… Well, you know.”


“Yes. I know.”


“At least you had the time to harden yourself to the idea though,” Ginny muttered, not thinking.


“What do you mean?”


Crap. “Can you keep a secret?”


“Of course.”


Ginny looked around to make sure that no cameramen were hidden anywhere or something like that. “I didn’t actually sign up to be on this show,” Ginny whispered.
“What?” Trista whispered back in shock.


“My best friend and flat-mate saw an add and sent in my information because she thought it was taking me too long to get over my ex-fiancé. I didn’t know anything about it until I got the letter notifying me of my acceptance.”


“You’re kidding!”


“Unfortunately, no.”


“That means — did she forge your signature?”


Ginny thought about it for a second. “She must have,” she answered in an aggravated monotone.


Trista started laughing. “And what is so funny, Miss Trista?”


Trista spoke between laughs: “You poor thing. Here you are — in the semi-finals — and you didn’t even want to come here.” She couldn’t talk now she was laughing so hard. “Are you going to kill your friend or thank her when you get home from this?”


“Funny you should say that,” Ginny said, hoping that Trista would not die of asphyxiation from lack of oxygen intake. “I’ve actually be wondering that same thing since I left to come here.”


“And the verdict?” Trista asked.


“At the risk of sounding cliché, the jury is still out. They were a rather biased bunch to begin with, however. One look at our bachelor and they pretty much had their minds’ made up. Sods.”


So much for hoping Trista would stop laughing. And, with the amount of sleep Ginny had gotten the night before and her relief that Trista was, in fact, not going to spontaneously combust, Ginny couldn’t help laughing with her.


Eventually their laughter subsided. “I am so tired.” Ginny’s words were followed by a tell-tale yawn; Trista giggled again.


“Well then, why don’t you get some sleep. Lord knows I’d like to get some. I know I won’t get any tonight. Tomorrow is the beginning of the end.”


Ginny felt all the blood leave her face and felt it all frantically travel to her heart. The end. Tomorrow it would all end. “Wait here a second,” Ginny commanded as she jumped up from the couch and sprinted to her room. She grabbed what she had come for and raced back to Trista.


She tore the piece of paper in half and gave Trista one half and a pen and kept the other for herself. “Give me your address. We’ll fire-speak sometime. Unless: does your house have a telephone? My dad is crazy about all things Muggle, so we’ve had one for years at our house, and my flat-mate is muggle born, so we had to have one too.”


“Actually, I do have one. I’ll put my number down too.”


They finished writing and swapped papers. “Now,” Ginny began. “we have to promise that, no matter what happens tomorrow, we’ll still get in contact. We can’t let the outcome of this silly show effect our friendship. Promise?”


“Absolutely,” Trista grinned.


They two hugged, which made Ginny slightly uncomfortable, since she really wasn’t the hugging type, then Ginny complained that if she didn’t get some sleep soon, she was certainly going to start hallucinating, and she claimed that the thought scared her. “The last time I dreamed, your head exploded, so hopefully I can keep that from happening.”


Ginny walked to her room and threw herself on the bed, sighing with the comfort the soft mattress lent her. She scooted herself toward the pillow and curled up on her side. Ten minutes later she changed positions. Another five and she moved again.


Despite the absolute exhaustion, Ginny couldn’t fall asleep. Sighing again, Ginny crossed one arm behind her head and stared at the ceiling.


Tomorrow was the end. Would it be the end, or just the beginning of the end, like Trista suggested. Tomorrow, it could either all be over, or only just beginning. Ginny wasn’t sure which she wanted it to be.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~



Dinner was set in a fancy dining room several confusing turns in the hallways away. The three of them sat at a strange almost square table set with candles and a more-than-glamorous oh-my-stars-how-much-did-that-thing-cost centerpiece. The room was far too large for the table and Ginny was almost afraid to talk, thinking that the echo would deafen the lot of them.


Ginny had never sat down for a meal with so many silver-ware choices. She had heard that in fancy restaurants there were specific forks for salad and the like, but she couldn’t imagine which one was for what. Harry seemed to be equally confused, and relieved that someone else was as confused as him. Trista seemed completely at home and actually giggled as she explained the uses for all of the things on their table. Ginny felt very uncomfortable eating like this, because she had never had impeccable table manners.


Now, is one supposed to cut meat by poking the fork in and cutting with the knife and immediately eating the piece cut off? Or is one supposed to gently hold the meat with the fork and trade hands after the piece has been cut in order to skewer the piece and then eat it? Or neither? Gah! I hate this.


Trista had flawless table manners, making Ginny hope that her face was not turning an obvious shade of green. Eventually Ginny just gave up trying to look graceful as she ate, because it was taking too long and she was torturing and slowly starving herself by trying.


Trista was eating gracefully and she was doing it effortlessly. Good thing I promised nothing would damage our friendship, because this would be getting me close to hating her, the part of Ginny’s consciousness, that had decided that lack of sleep was a horribly cruel thing for the world to force upon her, grumbled.


Ginny was very glad when dinner was over, especially after Connie came in half way through the meal and began rattling off the itinerary for the next day. Ginny’s appetite left her and she began to have a horrible heart-swallowing stomach ache at hearing about the next days events that she was sure she would never want to eat again.


Connie seemed oblivious of the torment she was putting Ginny through — either that or the wench was taking delight in it — and so continued on about it for nearly ten minutes. Oh yes, Ginny was very glad indeed when dinner was over.


After dinner, and one very gorgeous, green-eyed smiled later, Harry took to his room and Trista followed Ginny back to hers.


The two talked several hours into the night until Trista, noticing the glazed look in Ginny’s eyes, commanded her to go to sleep. Trista yawned as she left and, smiling, wished Ginny good luck for the morrow. Ginny almost wanted to cry. She stopped herself, however; the logical part of her consciousness — or the part of her consciousness that was actually still conscious — knew that if she cried right before falling asleep she was sure to have unsightly puffy-eye when she woke up. And that, of course, just would not do.


Laying on her bed with the lights off and still fully clothed, Ginny decided it was definitely time to try to get to sleep when the logical part of her consciousness and the part that thought the world was cruel and all that rot, began a heated discussion about American politics, which Ginny’s overall consciousness actually knew nothing about.


“I am absolutely nutters,” Ginny whined to herself as she rolled over and forced her mind to turn off for the night.


You know, maybe Bush really isn’t as much of a wanker as everyone makes him out to be.


Ginny groaned as she debated whether or not to start laughing hysterically or crying herself to sleep; hang the puffy-eyes.



~*~*~*~*~*~



Yeah, so, sorry this took forever to update. I've been busy with married life and school and work and debating whether or not we're going to transfer to another school, and all that rot, so...


I hope to get at least another chapter of this written by the end of Spring Break, but I may wait a few days before I post it, because I seem to get more reviews that way *winks*


Thank you all for being so patient!
Reviews 760
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