Weak Ankles: Chapter 1

Flashback

“Wait a minute, aren’t we forgetting someone?”

“Who?”

“The house elves. They’ll be down in the kitchens, won’t they?”

“You mean we ought to get them fighting?”

“No! I mean we should tell them to get out! We don’t want any more Dobbys, do we? I mean, we can’t order them to fight for us . . .”

Ron was interrupted as a mountain of cascading basilisk fangs fell to the ground of the Room of Requirement and a bushy blur of hair came running towards him. As the events quickly unfolded before his befuddled eyes, a pair of roughly chapped lips crashed against his. His eyes opened wide, and when his mind grasped what had just happened, he responded with enthusiasm, placing his hands on her hips and lifting Hermione into the air before twirling her twice around and setting her back down.

~•~•~•~

Hermione sat on the edge of Ginny’s bed looking at a picture of herself and Ron outside of the Burrow, laughing and talking at the lake. Ron would whisper something in her ear; she would try to suppress a giggle unsuccessfully, and would burst out laughing. Soon, Ron would join in, and once they stopped, the picture would replay itself.

Remembering the day of their first kiss brought a smile to Hermione’s face. That day brought an end to a war and a start to a new life for everyone. Ron and Hermione had been a couple ever since. They had seen their ups and downs, but one way or another, they’d pulled through.

And getting to this day, this . . . milestone, was an accomplishment in itself.

A knock on the door brought Hermione back to the present. “Come in!” she called.
Ginny poked her head around the door and smiled at the sight of her best friend.

“Hey, Mione,” she said. “Mum wants you downstairs for a minute. I think she wants to change part of the seating arrangement.”

Hermione smirked. Trust Mrs. Weasley to make major changes on the day of the wedding. “Tell her I’ll be there in a moment,” she told Ginny. Ginny nodded and closed the door.

A quick glance at the clock told her that it was six forty-five. She groaned. Hermione had already been up for over a half hour and had accomplished nothing. Being the bookworm who used to be obsessed with color coded study schedules, to her, a wasted half hour was like missing breakfast, lunch, and dinner to Ron.
Sighing, Hermione got up and walked briskly out the door and down the stairs to where Mrs. Weasley was standing with her hair pulled back roughly and the seating charts spread out on the table in front of her. With one last sweeping look over them and a satisfied nod, she gave her wand a flick, and they folded themselves and put themselves into their corresponding envelopes.

Mrs. Weasley looked up from her work and was surprised to see Hermione standing at the foot of the stairs. “Oh!” she exclaimed, clearly flustered. “Hermione, dear, I didn’t hear you come down! I’ve resolved the seating chart myself, but could you make sure the boys are up? I haven’t seen them all morning, and it wouldn’t be a wedding without a groom and a best man!”

“Of course, Mrs. Weasley,” Hermione said, smiling. She knew Ron would not be happy about her waking him up right now. She had said to him the day before that if he wasn’t up by eight, she would get one of the twins' punching telescopes and use it on him. He didn’t want to get up any sooner than he had to, but if Mrs. Weasley told you to do something and you didn’t do it, God only knows what she’d do to you, bride or not.

As she approached the room that Harry and Ron were sharing, she heard snoring coming from the closed door. Hermione smirked. Some things never change, she thought.

When she tried the doorknob, though, she found that it was locked. “Silly Ron,” she muttered. “Still thinks he can keep me out with a locked door.” As she sighed and shook her head, Hermione pulled out her wand. “Alohomora,” she muttered. The door opened with a click, and she found both Harry and Ron lying on their camp beds with their mouths hanging open and ghastly snoring coming from both of them.

“Ronald,” she called, shaking him. “Ronald!” she said, this time more forcefully. When nothing happened but he rolled over and stopped snoring, Hermione sighed in frustration and pulled out her wand. “Sorry, Ron,” she muttered, “but I have to do this. Rictusempra!”

Ron awoke with a start and burst out laughing. “HERMIONE!” he cried when he saw her standing next to his bed with her hands on her hips and a satisfied grin on her face. “Stop . . . ha, ha . . . it . . . he, he . . . NOW!” he exclaimed between outbursts of laughter.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but with a quick flick of her wand, she left Ron breathing hard, but his laughter had stopped.

“What the bloody hell was that for?” Ron exclaimed indignantly.

“I’m sorry!” Hermione claimed, holding her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I wouldn’t have, we agreed on eight, but Mrs. Weasley told me to wake you two up, and you know what she’s like when she’s angry.”

Ron muttered something that sounded an awful lot like an insult to Hermione. “What was that you just said, Ronald Bilius Weasley?” Hermione asked sternly. She had been working on his language over the past few months. He had improved loads, but he still had his occasional slip ups and outbursts.

“No . . . nothing, love,” he stuttered, his eyes suddenly wide, and he truly looked scared of his fiancée.

“That’s much better,” she said sweetly, and her features softened. “Now, let’s see what we can do about this lump over here,” she said, nodding in Harry’s direction. Ron snorted.

“Watch my language, huh?” Ron commented. “What about you?”

“I do not swear, Ronald, and I also don’t snort like a pig!” she exclaimed as she walked over to the bed where Harry still resided. “Oh, wake up, Harry!” she screeched, giving him a rough push.

Harry rolled over, but ran out of room on the bed and fell to the floor. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, flailing his arms, trying to catch his balance.

The sight of Harry in a pile on the ground tangled up in his sheets sent fits of laughter through both Ron and Hermione.

“That isn’t funny,” Harry said, but as soon as he said it, he saw the humor in the situation and burst out into peals of laughter.

A quick look at the clock, though, stopped his laughter as he let out a groan. “I thought we’d agreed on eight!”

“We did,” Hermione said sadly as she ran a hand across her forehead. She knew it was a lost battle with these two.

“Then why the bloody hell am I up at seven?”

What is it with boys and language? Hermione thought hopelessly. “Mrs. Weasley,” she stated simply, as though this settled the manner. “She sent me to wake you two up. You’d better come down for breakfast soon. There’s already food out on the kitchen table.”

At the sound of the word food, Ron’s eyes lit up, and he was off the bed, across the room, and out the door before you could say, “Quidditch!”

Harry chuckled. “Some things never change, do they?” he commented.

“You’re right,” Hermione said, and smiled. “Some things never do change.”

And with that, she walked across the room and followed Ron downstairs.

But when she got downstairs, all hell broke loose.

When she reached the last step, she caught a glimpse of Ron at the table and Aunt Muriel and Tonks standing at the counter before she was distracted by a scream coming from Mrs. Weasley outside in the courtyard. . .

To Be Continued . . .