Chapter Seven: The Three Broomsticks

Not DH-compliant.

Chapter Seven: The Three Broomsticks

Niamh was the first to see them enter the pub. She squeezed Chip's thigh under the table, and Chip looked up. He leaned over and whispered to Ginny, who turned her head to look toward the door. Ginny took Draco's hand.

"My brother just came in with Luna," Ginny said. "Just don't look and don't . . . please try not to do anything provocative."

"Like hold your hand?" Draco asked with a smirk, shaking his head.

"Shh," Niamh whispered. "They're coming over."

"Good thing we got a large table, then," Ginny said, turning to watch her brother and Luna approach. She smiled up at them. "You're having lunch here, too?"

"I never got my cream-filled cauldron cake," Luna said. "I'm getting hungry."

"Yeah . . . and I need to eat before I Apparate to the stadium," Ron said, trying to avoid looking at Ginny and Draco's hands, and only succeeding in staring.

"If you want, you can join us," Ginny said, "if that's all right with everyone else...are we expecting anyone else?"

Niamh shook her head.

"Fine with me," Chip said. He looked at Ron's right hand, which sported a double snake ring like the one he wore. "Always ready to share a meal with another Snape's Slytherin, after all," he said, reminding everyone at the table...including Ron...that during the battle, Ron had joined the group calling itself "Snape's Slytherins," and that after the war, Blaise Zabini had given him the same ring he'd given all the Slytherin combatants. Ron had joined the Slytherins because they had formed Harry's guard on the battlefield until they reached Riddle, but Ron had also identified himself with them when he gave an interview to the Daily Prophet the day after the battle. A Gryffindor Slytherin, who wasn't Slytherin at all, but he had stood with them and fought with them and forgotten for that time that there was any difference between them.

"Okay," Ron said with a nod, looking at Luna, who smiled. He pulled out the chair next to Draco for Luna, then he took the chair between Luna and Niamh.

"We've ordered," Chip said. "I'll try to get the wait-witch back."

There was no need for that, however, since a wait-witch quickly stepped up to the table to take the newcomers' orders. Ron, although dressed casually otherwise, was wearing his orange Chudley Cannons cape and hard to miss.

Niamh started the conversation by pulling out her new broomstick maintenance kit and showing it around. "Since I won't be able to afford the new Nimbus Victory, I thought I could at least baby my Nimbus Seventeen Hundred along for a while longer with a better maintenance kit than the one I've been using."

"That's a good-looking kit," Chip said. "I like the Charmed altimeter and speedometer combination. Are you going to use it?"

"I thought I'd try it," Niamh said, "although I've heard that they can interfere with aerodynamics if you install it yourself. You have to have special charms cast to prevent it, and I don't know them."

Luna lifted the round brass Charmed instrument from its nook in the kit. She stared at its foggy window dreamily. "Helena Benetti may know the charms. You should ask her. She might teach them to you." She breathed softly on the window, and it cleared, revealing "0 / 622." She breathed on it again, and it showed "0 / 2040.7." She passed it on to Ron and the window fogged over again.

"How much is the Victory going to cost?" Ginny asked as the rest of the maintenance kit was passed around and admired.

"They aren't advertising a price yet, but the chap at the shop this morning said he'd heard it would be close to a thousand Galleons, retail. I hope it won't be that expensive, but it's supposed to be almost as good as some of the specialty one-of-a-kind brooms that go for a few thousand each," Niamh replied.

"Ms Benetti was a tester for the broomstick," Ginny said as a big bowl of prawn-flavoured crisps arrived on the table. She reached in and took a couple. "I tried to get her to tell me about it, but she just gave me one of the promotional brochures. She has some kind of confidentiality agreement about it or something."

"I wonder if she gets a free one," Luna pondered.

"Maybe," Ron said, speaking up for the first time. "Some of the players on my team have endorsements with Nimbus, and they got free Nimbus Twenty-One Hundreds. They get an extra fee if they fly them during the games. Johnny Crumb gets ten Galleons for every game he flies his in, and he gets an extra Galleon for every goal he scores when he's riding it."

"He must have done well in that last game against the Harpies, then," Chip said. "How many goals did he score? Twenty-three? Twenty-four?"

"Twenty-three," Ron said. "So even though we lost, he still made thirty-three extra Galleons just for playing in the game."

"I read that the Ministry was thinking of making it illegal for that kind of payment...for scoring goals. They say it's too much like gambling on their own game or something," Niamh said, biting into a crisp.

"With my luck," Ron said with a melodramatic sigh, "they'll pass that law as soon as a company becomes interested in having me do an endorsement for them!"

Everyone chuckled in sympathy.

"Ah, they'd probably find some other way of paying the players then," Chip said. "Especially Nimbus. They spend a lot of money on advertising. I have a cousin who works for them, and all he does is work on promoting the new models."

"Can't he tell you how much the new Victory will be?" Ginny asked.

"If he wanted to get sacked, yeah," Chip said with a grin. "He did say that after the broomstick came back from what they thought would be the final testing in March, they had to rework the charms, so the release was moved from May twenty-sixth to the sixth of June so they'd have more time to polish the charms and get them perfect. I think it's going to be a really zippy broomstick."

Draco twitched a smile. "Maybe if the Hufflepuff team had them, the charms would keep them from flying into each other."

They all laughed at that, but then Niamh said, "Ms Benetti has been working with the Hufflepuffs, trying to get them to play as a team. They'll be better next game, I think, the match against Slytherin."

Luna smiled. "I saw them. They were running around on the ground waving funny sticks in the air. I didn't think it looked very useful, although it did look exhausting."

"I'm not sure," Niamh said, "but they'll be better. They have a new Chaser, too."

"I know what they were doing," Ginny said smugly.

"What?" Chip asked.

Niamh frowned slightly, but didn't say anything.

"She had them playing Muggle lacrosse a couple weeks ago, and then after that, they were playing broomstick lacrosse, which is apparently a sport they have at Whiteshell. It's supposed to improve their coordination and teamwork. Next autumn, she's going to form wizarding lacrosse teams, just for fun," Ginny said.

"So Benetti's staying at Hogwarts?" Ron asked. When Ginny nodded, Ron said, "That's good. I know that the Harpies and the Pride of Portree were recruiting her...or trying to...and I think some European teams were interested, too. I thought she'd go back to Sweetwater, actually. She was one of their highest paid players. Hard to believe she'd give that all up for a piddly job at Hogwarts."

"She says she likes it here," Ginny replied. "I think she's made friends."

Their food arrived, and conversation ebbed as they ate.

As soon as he saw that Luna had finished her meal, Ron signalled the wait-witch and paid their bill. He and Luna rose from the table, saying their good-byes, but Ginny got up and followed them to the door.

She threw her arms around Ron. "Thanks," she whispered. "Thank you, Ron. I'm so glad you came and that . . . that you were nice to Draco."

Uncomfortable, Ron said, "Well, it was nice to see everyone again. You and Niamh. And Thackery."

"And Draco?"

Ron hesitated, then he said, "I'm trying to pretend that he's a stranger I'm meeting for the first time. But without all the 'get-to-know-you' questions."

"Still, I'm glad you came. Good luck against Puddlemere!"

"Yeah, now that Millicent can't play, I think we have a good chance. She was one fierce Beater. Check the Daily Prophet tomorrow. You'll know then whether I celebrated wildly and fell over dead-drunk tonight or drowned my sorrows . . . and fell over dead-drunk tonight." He gave a half-smile.

"I might be able to listen to the game on the Wizarding Wireless," Ginny said. "I'll try to!"

"Listen, Ginny . . . someone needs to tell Harry. You know what. It wouldn't be good if he found out . . . some strange way. He's my best mate, always has been. You know what he's likely to think."

"You tell him, then," Ginny replied.

"No, no, it has to come from you."

"But how? I'm at school! And he made little enough time for me even when we were seeing each other . . . You need to tell him," Ginny insisted. "Better from you than someone else. I just hope you're nice about it and don't egg him on. I don't want Harry chasing Draco down, wand drawn!"

"You care more about Draco than you do Harry," Ron said with a frown, his brow furrowed.

"No. Or yes. But that's natural. And I hope you'd feel the same about Luna. Please, Ron . . . I'll write a letter for him and send it to you. You can explain as best you can...just keep it to the minimum...and then give him my letter, okay?"

Ron nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, okay." He looked down at her, shaking his head. "But you are telling Dad. And I want to be far away when you do."

Ginny quirked a sideways grin. "Sure. Thanks again, Ron. You're the best big brother a witch could want!"

For the first time since Ron had stepped into the Quidditch supply shop and heard Ginny call Draco her "date," he smiled broadly. "I have your back, Gin. No matter what. I'm no fan of the chap's family, but . . . prove me wrong, I hope, little sister. For your sake. Prove me wrong."

He kissed her forehead, then left the pub with Luna, taking her arm and then pulling her close and putting his arm around her. Ginny watched them walk down the street toward the joke shop, Ron's limp barely noticeable, then she turned and saw Draco watching her. She smiled, and she was pleased when his pinched expression relaxed, and he returned her smile and held out his hand, gesturing to her to return to him.

Author's Note: Millicent Bulstrode was one of the victims of the vigilante's attack at the end of March in A Long Vernal Season.

Helena Benetti first appeared in Death's Dominion, and she's appeared in A Long Vernal Season, where she's the Hogwarts Flying instructor and Quidditch coach and referee. She had help from Severus when she did some of the test flights for the new Nimbus Victory.

Ron's limp is from the injury he received during the raid on Malfoy manor in Death's Dominion, when he was hit by a Conruptus, which caused gangrene-like damage to one of his legs. Millicent's injury was caused by the same curse.