Pool Party

Ron turned a deathly shade of white and stood rooted to the spot, paralyzed with fear. He could almost feel the color drain away from his face, his legs going limp, his mouth becoming dry all at once. He tried to speak, his mouth moving, but no words came. Harry saw the golden lights out of the corner of his eye and thought it to be nothing until he saw Ron.

Harry did a double take at Ron, put down his plastic cup full of pumpkin juice on the nearby table, and shook his shoulders violently. This still didn't seem to crack Ron, and Harry took this as a bad sign.

"Ron, what's wrong? Are you all right? Come on, mate, talk to me." Harry urged, but all Ron could do was point and whisper.

"Mum . . . Dad . . . Coming back . . ." Harry understood immediately and left Ron's side and shut off the radio, making the backyard go quiet. Angry voices shouted at him to turn it back on and what his problem was. Hermione and Ginny glanced sideways at each other and shushed everyone around them to listen to Harry.

"Everyone needs to go home immediately! There's no time to explain, but everyone needs to get out of the pool and gather up your things! This is not a joke!" Harry shouted. While the guests were scampering out as quickly as they could, Harry turned to Fred and George. "I need you two to get the floo powder and Floo everyone back to their homes as quick as you can."

"Harry, what's going on? Why are you making this such a big deal?" George asked, gathering up all the drinks and food.

"You're Mum and Dad are coming home and unless you want to get caught, that's fine by me, but I would rather not get sent back to the Dursley's because that's EXACTLY what's going to happen if we don't get our asses in gear." Fred and George looked at each other, both wide eyed, and began to gather things up a bit more faster and charming things to go into the house.

Hermione and Ginny ushered people along and when Fred and George were done outside, they grabbed the bag of emerald green floo powder and threw a huge handful furiously into the fire. One by one people stepped into the fireplace, shouting out their home addresses, and they all disappeared in seconds.

Ron had finally snapped out of his trance and began to tidy up outside, constantly checking to make sure no one had forgotten anything. The food was thrown away or put back into the refrigerator and cabinets, the drinks were also disposed of or put away, and the radio was carried back upstairs and into her room by Ginny.

Just as the headlights rounded the corner, Angelina kissed Fred on the cheek one last time before saying goodnight, and disappeared without a trace. Fred grinned but regained his composure and turned around to everyone else.

"Now what? Everyone's gone, everything is put away-"

"Uh, just act natural I guess. Sit on the couch, flip through books, that sort of thing. Harry, turn on that radio, flip to a station and leave it there. Hermione, grab those old magazines and spread them out like we were reading them. Come on, let's please not screw this up." Ginny ordered and everyone went straight to work. Fred and George kept on the lookout for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

After two minutes passed, which seemed to take forever, they finally had everything set out. Right as Hermione and Harry flopped onto the couch, the door opened and Mrs. Weasley's cheerful voice rang throughout the house.

"Hello? Anyone home? We're back and we got everyone's school things!" They could hear what seemed to be heavy bags being set on the counter. Mr. Weasley entered the living room to find all of the kids in a big heap on the couch.

"Oh! Here you are! Fred, George you're still here? I'd have thought you'd be home by now. Well, no matter, you can help your Mother bring in the bags from Diagon Alley. But first I want to hear how the pool was." He said anxiously. The six of them sat up and all at once started bombarding him with comments.

"Oh it was wonderful! Great job, Dad."

"I haven't been in a pool in a while. Thank you so much, Mr. Weasley."

"We had such a good time."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you six had a good time. But I didn't expect all eight of you to." Mrs. Weasley interjected. All chattering stopped at once and a deathly silence filled the room.

"What are you talking about, Mum?" Ron asked as casually as he could manage. Mrs. Weasley was red in the face and she was holding a pair of leopard printed sunglasses that looked oddly like Angelina's and a dark blue shirt that was slightly too big to be either Ron or Harry's, and it looked like Neville's. No one moved or made a sound. Finally Mrs. Weasley broke the silence.

"I thought I told you no parties. Did I not make myself clear enough?" She spoke calmly, but there was a hint of anger in her voice.

"Ron, Ginny, Fred, George what is the meaning of this? Explain yourselves . . . Now." Mr. Weasley said sternly.

"We didn't have a party." Ginny spoke confidently.

"Then how do you explain these?" Mrs. Weasley waved the sunglasses and the shirt in front of Ginny's face. "I don't ever remember you owning a pair of leopard printed sunglasses in my life. Maybe you might have bought them without you telling me, but knowing you, Ginny you would have shown them to me right from the start.

"And whose shirt is this? I know it certainly can't be yours, Ron, because I sew you're name into every piece of clothing that you have ever owned. Besides, I know for a fact that blue is not your favorite color."

The room went silent once again and everyone racked their brains for something to come up with. Hermione was the one to come up with the brilliant explanation.

"Those sunglasses are mine, Mrs. Weasley. I brought them over because I just bought them before I left. I haven't needed them because it's been raining non-stop since I've been here. I must have left them on the table and forgotten about them when we got out of the pool. I apologize." The kids looked at Hermione wide-eyed and thankful. Mrs. Weasley seemed to settle down a bit but she thrust the blue shirt under Ron's nose.

"What about this then, hmmm? Whose is this, Ron? It can't fit Harry and it would be too short for Fred or George. So come on, speak up." Mrs. Weasley said impatiently. More silence came and stayed for what seemed like forever. When a good two minutes passed by with no explanation of where the shirt come from, Mrs. Weasley gave up, turned on her heel and walked away mumbling to herself. Mr. Weasley shook his head and took off after his wife. Everyone sighed and plopped down on the couch in unison.

"Well, that went splendidly. I thought you checked everywhere, Ron!" said George accusingly.

"I did! At least I thought I did. Look, I'm sorry, all right?" said Ron, crossing his arms. George sighed and shook his head.

"No I'm sorry, Ron. We should have never thought of this in the first place or you guys wouldn't be in this situation." Hermione looked up and gasped.

"Don't talk rubbish, George! This was a great party! So what if we got caught? We were probably bound to anyway. All in all I had a good time no matter what you think and I would be inclined to do it again." Everyone's jaw dropped at Hermione's comment. Hermione, being the most studious, most disciplined, least likely to break the rules, was saying that she didn't care if they got caught? And would want to do it again? This hardly seemed logical.

"I agree with Hermione. This was the best day of summer vacation that I've ever had in my life and if I could I would do it all over again. It was good for us to do this. Almost the whole summer we've done nothing but play Quidditch. Don't get me wrong I love Quidditch almost as much as anyone here," Ginny added quickly, seeing Ron's glare. "But you know what I mean, guys." Everyone nodded.

"I also agree with Ginny. I had fun at the party and no one is going to change my mind." Harry said, taking hold of Ginny's hand and smiling at her. Ginny blushed and smiled back.

"Yeah okay I guess you're right, Hermione. I mean if it wasn't for my intelligence we would never-" said George but was interrupted by Ron snorting.

"Intelligence? You? Oh please! You could barely scrape any O.W.L.S and you call yourself intelligent?" said Ron in disbelief.

"Hey, who's the one that got rid of Umbridge? Who's the one that gave Harry the Maurder's Map in his third year and told him all the secret passageways?" Fred interjected. Ron glared at them silently and a grin spread over the twins' faces.

"Ha! Got you there! Can't come up with anything, can you?" George asked, starting to laugh.

"That's not book smart that just plain stupidity. Anyone who has enough bravery can pull that off." said Hermione tartly. Ron grinned triumphantly and put his arm around his girlfriend, Fred and George snickering.

"What do you think our punishment will be?" Ginny asked, deliberately changing the subject.

"I hope we don't have to denome the garden. That's the worst job a Wizard could do for a chore." Ron groaned.

"Oh believe me, you won't just denome the garden, but you'll probably have to do much worse chores than this. I don't know what it will be but believe me you'll be doing it." said Fred. Him and George were positively giddy over the fact that they weren't, for once, being punished. They don't live there anymore!

Everyone sighed with grief and thought about the previous events. They did have a pretty great time, even if Malfoy did ruin an hour of fun. Aside from that, the music was great, the guests were a riot, and everyone seemed to not care about anything in that moment.

"Well, at least we got something good that I missed." Ron said, staring out beyond the glass window.

"What's that?" Harry asked. Ron smiled and pointed to a bowl sitting on the tabletop.

"I forgot the peaches." He said, getting up to retrieve them. He came back with the bowl and about twenty untouched slices of peaches and offered them to his friends. They dug in and each grabbed a slippery piece. The girls giggled as the juices trickled down their chins and left their fingertips sticky.

"Whatever happens," said Hermione through a giggle. "with the chores or with Malfoy, let's just not worry about it until the time comes. Agreed?" said Hermione.

"Agreed." Came the voices of five other people while trying to lick off the sticky juice from the peaches.

About an hour later, their fate was still undecided so Fred and George went home and Ron, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny went to bed, dreading the next morning.

As Harry slipped into bed he couldn't help feeling a little uncertain about the things that Malfoy said earlier. He still could not figure out what everything meant. He decided not to dwell on it and closed his eyes, immediately seeing Ginny's lovely face before him. Before drifting off into dreamland, he knew that Hermione was right. Whatever awaited them at the end of the tunnel was going to be dealt with. And until then, no more worries, no more fears, no more doubts were going to plague him. Whatever happens will happen and until then he hoped to have a safe journey with his friends.

Left with these thoughts, Harry smiled in his sleep, and kept on dreaming into the night.