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I'd Rather Fall in Chocolate | ||||||
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Category: Alternate Universe Characters:Harry/Ginny Genres: Comedy Warnings: Negative Alcohol Use Story is Complete Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 421 Summary: Ginny's got a new enemy - she's just not sure who it is ... Harry knows what he wants - he just doesn't know how to get it ... Hitcount: Story Total: 100773; Chapter Total: 5127 Awards: View Trophy Room Author's Notes: *sneaks in quietly, drops chapter and ducks for cover* |
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The tent gleamed in the weak sunlight of the early morning. Harry idly wondered if it was the correct colour. It was Eggshell, or Linen or something — he had been listening to Hermione, he just didn’t care. From the top of the Burrow the people erecting the tent looked like little ants. Fire ants probably — their red hair bobbing about as they wove in and out of the tent waving their wands and making the Cornsilk? tent take shape. Harry knew he should probably help but he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to concentrate properly. He’d probably bring the stupid tent down on all their heads. Harry sighed heavily. The past week had been torture and frankly just a little bit confusing. As he sat in the dusty attic of the Burrow, the ghoul eyeing him suspiciously, Harry played the events of the week over in his head. Again. Took Ginny to the game. Bought her flowers. Got a smile. Went to her game. Got called out to fight dark wizards. Got injured. Got patched up by Mrs Weasley. Got glared at by Ginny. And that’s where it became confusing. Got lectured by Hermione. Got ignored by Ginny. Got frowned at by Mrs Weasley. Got an earful of French from Fleur. Got Spoken To by Mr Weasley. Got glowered at by Bill. Got tutted at by George. Got a thump on the arm from Ron. Got officiously censured by Percy. And Harry still didn’t know what he’d done. He sensed he’d made a mistake somehow. Harry retraced his steps in his mind. He’d spent the night at the Burrow after Ginny’s game and then woke early to get back to his room at the Leaky Cauldron to get to work on time. He’d tripped over something at the bottom of the stairs. A quick Lumos revealed the flowers he’d given Ginny. They were wilted and bit battered looking so he cast a refreshing charm on them, summoned a vase and left them on the kitchen table before hastily scribbling Mrs Weasely a thank you note and Apparating back to Diagon Alley. Harry rubbed at his healing chest. Mrs Weasley had done an excellent job but the wizard who’d taken him down on Sunday night had been quite powerful. The paperwork had been beastly. When he’d finally finished work on Monday, after filling in six forms regarding the capture, a triplicate form absolving the Auror Department of his medical care and making case notes for all twenty Muggles that had to be Obliviated, Harry had wandered into the Leaky Cauldron trying to figure out if he should contact Ginny or if that would be too pushy. “Harry! Where have you been?” Hermione’s shrill voice startled Harry. He looked around, for an escape if he was being honest with himself, before shrugging half-heartedly. “At work, Hermione,” he said wearily. “Where people go on Mondays.” “You’re late,” she snapped. “For what?” Harry sighed, wondering what he’d forgotten this time. “The planning meeting!” “Oh, er right, sorry,” Harry offered, not having the faintest clue what Hermione was talking about. Hermione began saying things about broomsticks and buttonholes and cars and cakes and grasped his arm, dragging him over to a small table under one of the dingy windows that looked out into Muggle London. She pushed him into a chair, still conducting a bewildering monologue about photographs and placecards before opening a massive ledger on the tiny table in front of them. “Right,” said Hermione officiously, tapping her finger on the ledger as she spoke. “We’ve got Ministry cars for my parents, Uncle Algernon and Aunt Gertrude. My cousin won’t be coming — ” “What a shame,” Ron broke in sarcastically, taking a long swig out of his goblet. Harry didn’t know what was in the goblet, but he knew he wanted one and fast because if this meeting was about the wedding, he’d need it to get through it before Hermione started on the colour of the carpet. “ — and Neville’s going to fetch Professor McGonagall,” Hermione finished, glaring at her fiancé. Ron just drank some more. Harry decided he would be eloping. “Every man and his dog is in here tonight.” Another goblet was thumped onto the table. Harry looked up to see a curtain of shimmering red hair. He smiled. But the curtain of red hair didn’t swing back. Its owner sat in the last remaining chair at the tiny table and stared out of the window. For over an hour Ginny sipped her drink, stared out the window and agreed with everything Hermione said. Ron got progressively drunker and Harry learned more about flower arrangements than he’d ever thought possible. He couldn’t imagine that a florist would accidentally make a funeral wreath out of the flowers assigned to decorate the tables, but he solemnly assured Hermione that he’d check first thing tomorrow, along with picking up sugared almonds on Tuesday, the champagne on Wednesday, a four tier wedding cake on Thursday (but only if it was decorated in shamrock, not mint), a roll of alabaster ribbon on Friday and make sure Neville had a boutonniere. He was going to do that last one as soon as he figured out what a boutonnière was. Hermione gave him a parchment To Do list as long as the front bar of the Leaky Cauldron and Ginny left without saying a word to him. When Harry arrived at The Burrow on Tuesday with six pounds of sugared almonds and a bag of tulle, which he found entirely inexplicable, he had been drafted into some sort of kitchen table crafting party where Fleur, Mrs Weasley and Hermione expected him to hold endless bags of sugared almonds while they tied about six hundred and fifty juniper ribbons (they looked green to Harry) and got slightly tipsy on the second best champagne. He had no idea where Ginny was and an enquiry about her earned him a sharp look from Hermione, a tirade from Fleur, in French, which he didn’t understand and a lingering frown from Mrs Weasley. Harry eventually escaped into the cool night air and apparated back to Diagon Alley with an even firmer resolve to never again participate in a wedding. On Wednesday, when Harry levitated a crate of champagne into the shed at The Burrow, Mr Weasley sat him down and talked gravely to him about witches, their expectations and moods. In the end even Mr Weasley confessed that he wasn’t exactly sure how to always get it right but that one must at least try. Harry earnestly assured Mr Weasley that he would and the older man beamed benevolently before showing Harry a broken television set and asking if he knew how to fix it. Harry had absolutely no idea what he was getting wrong, let alone how he would go about getting it right so he tried to fix the television instead but had a feeling he didn’t succeed at that either. Having been assured that the cake was indeed festooned with green ribbons that were not mint, Harry carried all four boxes from the Muggle bakery in Ottery St Catchpole to the Burrow on Thursday night, arriving just in time for tea. Harry placed his precious cargo carefully on the kitchen sideboard and released the stabilising charms he’d surreptitiously cast on the tower of boxes in the middle of the village when he’d nearly dropped them in a mud puddle. Harry shuddered thinking about Hermione’s reaction if he’d dropped them. “Are you staying for tea, Harry dear?” asked Mrs Weasley in the incredibly polite voice she reserved for people like the Minister for Magic. Harry frowned a little and glanced around the kitchen. The only other occupant was Bill who was levitating dishes and cutlery to the table. Bill glowered at him and Harry realised where Ginny must have learned her death stare from. “Er, um, no thank you,” said Harry, clearing his throat nervously. “Perhaps another time.” He thought he heard Bill growl as he hurriedly left through the back door, nearly tripping over a Garden Gnome in his haste. He apparated quickly to Diagon Alley and bumped into George in the Leaky Cauldron’s front bar. George tipped his glass, motioning him to the stool next to him and Harry sighed in relief, sitting down and ordering a pint. George was singularly unhelpful when Harry enquired of him why Bill might be cross. George seemed to think it was that time of the month. Harry wasn’t so sure. But then, when he asked after Ginny, George just shook his head at Harry sorrowfully and actually tutted at him before ordering another round. Harry went up to bed a few hours later having gotten gloriously drunk and singing both sea shanties and the Hogwarts school song with George before Hannah had Neville throw them out of her bar. Nursing a hangover, Harry stopped in at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes on Friday morning on the way to the obscure shop where they sold about fifty billion colours of ribbons, if Hermione’s worry over him collecting the wrong sort was anything to go by. He saw Ron at the counter, straightening a few boxes and humming merrily. “Ron, Georgeaveanyhangverpotion?” Harry winced as each syllable left him mouth, trying to shorten each word as much as possible. Ron thumped him and then handed him a vial before asking him about the Quidditch scores. Harry winced, downing the potion and blinking hastily to clear his vision. After listening to a solely unconvincing argument as to why Chudley would win this weekend, Harry excused himself to pick up the ribbon before heading into work at the Ministry, whereupon Percy bailed him up in an obscure corridor on the sixth floor and said a lot of big words like faux pas, inefficacy and impasse. Harry thought he was talking about Ginny at one point but could also have been talking about Cannon Thurston which, by the way Percy spoke about this Cannon, might have been a person, battle weaponry or George’s latest joke product. Harry nodded vaguely and excused himself still wondering what a boutonnière was. While Neville had been able to tell him what a boutonnière was, and assured Harry he would arrange one with green ribbons to which Hermione could not possibly object, he had not had any wisdom at all to impart about what was going on with the Weasleys. Neville hadn’t seen Ginny all week as he’d been busy with work and a particularly troublesome multiplying spell that one of the third year Ravenclaws had inadvertently cast on Greenhouse 4. He farewelled Harry hastily when he realised that he’d put some Snargaluff in his pocket instead of his wand and promised to be at the wedding on time. Neville hurried out, the Snargaluff multiplying in his hands as he tried to wrestle with the Floo powder pot and Harry remained none the wiser. Harry sighed again as the green (Forest? Basil?) banners on the top of the wedding tent in The Burrow’s garden unfurled. He heard Hermione calling his name up the stairs and braced himself for the many jobs she no doubt wanted him to achieve in half as many minutes and uncurled himself from the cramped corner of the attic, dragging himself to the stairs. The ghoul rattled his chains menacingly but Harry glared at him and slammed the door shut. He did not need the ghoul mad at him as well! “There you are!” Hermione exclaimed when he emerged onto the landing outside Ron’s room. “Why aren’t you getting ready?” “Hermione, the wedding isn’t for seven hours,” Harry said listlessly. “Do I really need to get ready now?” Hermione glared at him fiercely. One might even call that malevolence. Harry, eyes wide, threw his hands up in surrender and backed hastily into Ron’s bedroom, closing the door behind himself with a gulp. Ginny had been teaching her how to do the death look. Merlin, Ron was in trouble now. “She found you then,” Ron remarked dryly as he lay on his bed, twitching his wand towards the ceiling where a paper plane was idly circling the room. Two sets of dress robes hung on the outside of Ron’s wardrobe and two incredibly shiny pairs of shoes sat underneath them. They looked incredibly uncomfortable. “Yeah,” was all Harry said in return. He flopped onto the camp bed crammed under the window and sighed heavily. “We should get dressed,” Ron said, not moving a muscle except to flick his wand to reverse the plane’s direction. Harry replayed the week in his head again. Flowers, smile, game, injury, glare, thump, headache! Ron rolled over suddenly and rummaged under his bed, pulling out a bottle of champagne. “There’s only the fancy stuff,” Ron said morosely, eyeing the bottle critically. “But it’ll have to do. Not even Hermione can count that many bottles with the number of things on her To Do list. She’ll never know.” Harry conjured two goblets and Ron bewitched the bottle to pour them both a drink. “Cheers!” said Harry, downing the drink in one gulp. The fizz of it tickled his nose and made Ron grimace. They didn’t finish the bottle, leaving it abandoned, half full on the floor while they stared at the paper plane now tilted sideways on its repetitive loop around the room. It wasn’t until Hermione sent a Howler upstairs six hours before the wedding was due to start that either of them moved. |
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