And Life Goes On - Part 2

Harry groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Ron, what did you do?

"All three of them are here somewhere. Ron's been by several times to check on you, along with Fred, George, Charlie and Mum. Every ten minutes or so one of them pops their head in. I think it's a conspiracy," Ginny whispered dramatically. Soft wisps of hair had broken free from the intricate knot on her head and tickled his face as she leaned near him. He longed to free the rest of her hair and let it fall loose.

"Don't they trust us?" he asked, grinning.

"Should they?" she asked, arching her brow.

"Well, we'd best live up to our as yet unearned reputation, shouldn't we?" he asked, quickly rolling over and twisting so that she was now resting back on the couch, and he was leaning over her. More pieces of her hair came undone as he pressed his lips to hers and lost himself in the sweetness of the kiss.

It felt like only an instant later when there was a sharp clearing of a throat from the entrance way to the room. Harry pulled back reluctantly, to find Ron standing in the doorway, glowering, his lower lip swollen to twice its natural size.

"Do you have to do that?" he asked, his speech oddly distorted from his fat lip.

"Most definitely," Harry replied cheekily and quickly planted another kiss on Ginny's lips. "What happened to you?"

Harry and Ginny sat up and moved apart slightly on the couch, as Ron entered the room and took a seat across from them.

"Well, if you hadn't noticed because of all your snogging with my sister...there was a battle with Death Eaters at my house a bit ago, Harry," Ron said, disgruntled.

"You don't say? That would explain why I'm flat on my back then, wouldn't it? Funny, I don't remember seeing you during the battle," Harry said, cocking his eyebrow.

"You told him," Ron said, scowling at Ginny.

"Of course I did," Ginny replied, smirking and snuggling closer to Harry again. He wrapped his arm around her and ignored Ron's glare.

"What happened to Hermione?" he asked, torn between enjoying seeing Ginny spar with Ron and wanting the details before it erupted into all-out sibling warfare.

"Vicky tried to get me with a Reducto spell that ricocheted off Mum's hutch and hit Hermione. Mum patched her up, but she's not talking to me. As if it's my fault," Ron said, crossing his arms across his chest and scowling at the room in general.

"Why did he try to curse you?" Harry asked, suddenly feeling very tired again.

"He could have been provoked," Ron admitted grudgingly. "That's not the point, though. He curses her, and she won't talk to me. How am I supposed to ever figure that one out?"

Harry groaned. "What did you do, Ron? Why were you hexing each other? I thought you'd told me earlier that you knew Hermione went to the wedding as your date. I thought everything was okay between you."

"It was okay until that git tried to make his move on my girl," Ron said angrily, and Harry suspected he didn't even realize how he'd referred to Hermione. "After you went off with Ginny, I knew you'd end up snogging, and I didn't want to see it, so I went to look for Hermione. I found her cozied up with Vicky back inside the Burrow."

"But, Ron, I thought we'd talked about this. She went to the wedding with you, as your date. I thought you were okay with her and Victor," Harry said wearily.