Mo' Mops, Mo' Problems

Pairing: Hr/G (F/M)

Rating: PG-13 maybe edging on R because Ron's a tool. Or should that be because of Ron's 'tool'?

Summary: Somewhat sequel to Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Once again we have Hermione and Ginny in Filch's beloved mop cupboard but more serious topics are on the agenda than mop-care.

Disclaimer: Blah again.

Authors Notes: It's the return of the MopVerse. With 10 more mops. A sprinkling of angst and it's still not to be taken seriously. And sweetness crept in there. Ach. I'd recommend reading Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches otherwise you might wonder where all this 'mop' stuff is coming from. I'd also recommend lashlarue's hilarious and disgusting "Weasley really IS our king" for an explanation on the Ron and Draco stuff.

I intended this fic to be uber silly from the title but it didn't really end up that way. I couldn't bear to change the title though because I honestly think it's the best title I've ever come up with. And I'm usually rubbish at choosing titles.

"Look, Hermione, I'm just not sure this is going to work out right now. There's a lot of stuff going on—" Ginny trailed off, looking everywhere but at Hermione. They were once again in the forbidden mop cupboard. No other cupboard in Hogwarts felt quite the same as this cupboard or was within handy enough reach of the Gryffindor common room. They had to seek the sanctuary of cupboards for various reasons – many of which Ginny was tired of.

Ginny had learned a lot from her mother. Like any matriarch, Molly Weasley knew how to get what she wanted from the males in her life. She was more apt than most, considering she had six sons and a husband; Ginny had the advantage of learning at the feet of a master.

It wasn't that difficult to covertly spruce the place up. Ginny had worked an oblivious Filch like a house elf. He'd installed a wall-length rack for his mops at Ginny's suggestion. She did this by making sure he was in the vicinity for a very loud conversation she had with Neville about proper household cleaning supply storage and the grave dangers of going without. Not that Ginny had a particular fetish for organising mops – she was just bloody sick of having to pick up and carefully replace them against the wall once Hermione and herself had finished exercising their hormonal urges. Ginny had decided if they were going to be spending some time here then they might as well make it look nice. She'd also gotten Hermione to write to Mrs Granger to ask her to send a packet of muggle car air fresheners, which Ginny then left under the supervision of Mrs Norris. As predicted, the cat had alerted her owner to the freebie lying in the hall and Filch swiped it as she'd expected.

Ginny gazed at the fir tree-shaped scented cardboard dangling from the ceiling and completely forgot what she was talking about.

"Ginny!"

"W-What?"

"Could you not get distracted while trying to break up with me? It's extremely rude."

Sorry… yeah. Right. And I'm hardly breaking up with you," Ginny mumbled.

"Really? Then what does 'not sure it's going to work out right now' mean?" Hermione asked fiercely.

"Well, I'm saying it's hardly breaking up if we were never together," Ginny shrugged, again her eyes wandering and examining the freshly painted stone walls. She knew they would be dry now, although they weren't two nights ago when she and Hermione were rolling about in here like the frisky teenagers they were. They hadn't noticed the paint smell because of the overuse of car air fresheners. Hermione had blamed Ginny for the white paint all over the back of her shirt as Ginny was the one who made sure Filch confiscated white paint from some of the second years (who were using it to mark their Nifflers in the Great Niffle Race). Ginny had told Hermione to stop moaning, as her shirt was white and you could hardly notice it, not to mention she had a dozen other white shirts for school.

"What do you mean we were never together?" Hermione repeated incredulously. "We've been together every night of the past two months! There have been shorter engagements than that!"

"Whether or not this thing we have is actually a relationship that we can break up is besides the point. Like I say, there's a lot going on…"

"Like what?" Hermione challenged immediately.

"Your exams, for one—"

"—Sod my exams – they're not for months," Hermione scoffed and Ginny gave a little faux gasp.

"Miss Granger, delusions and hallucinations - you must be running a fever! You don't mean that!" Ginny couldn't help but laugh.

"I do so," Hermione said stubbornly, kicking her heels against the wall and feeling her face grow hot. Ginny poking fun at her right now wasn't the greatest feeling in the world: Which Ginny recognised at once and stopped laughing.

"Sorry," Ginny whispered, feeling ashamed.

"Sorry for laughing at me or sorry for trying to break up with me and saying that we don't even have anything to break?" Hermione asked in a level voice, while staring at the remarkable clean floor. She knew that Ginny had gotten Luna's father to put an article in the Quibbler (written by Ginny under a pseudo-name, of course) about the scourge of the Stonesect: a vicious, invisible (and imaginary) insect that devoured the heads of mops in their prime, ruining their mopping careers and reducing them to no more than wooden sticks. Stonesects thrived on cold, dirty stone floors – apparently – and the best cure was a clean floor and perhaps a nice rug to be on the safe side.

The rug Filch had immediately bought was green and orange – tasteless to say the least. Ginny reasoned that it didn't matter as they weren't exactly examining the rug every time they had clandestine meeting.

Before tonight, Hermione had wondered how long it might be before Ginny subversively urged Filch to hang a few paintings but now that Ginny seemed to want nothing more to do with her, she supposed that wasn't on top of the red head's To Do list.

"Both," Ginny replied finally. Hermione could feel the younger girls eyes staring through her without looking up. She cleared her throat and straightened, noticing that Ginny's expression was much softer now.

"So what do you want to do?" Hermione asked crisply. "Go back to being friends? Ignore each other completely? What? Or how about you stop making excuses and we actually have something to break?"

"What'd you mean?" she asked curiously.

"We start telling people about us. Our friends, our family's."

"Hermione, how would we know it'd even work?" Ginny sighed, taking the opportunity to slide down the back of the door and land on the floor. "We go through all of that – telling people, dealing with it – and then you—or we decide it's not working. Then it was all that for nothing. And like I said, there's a lot going on at the moment."

"Like what?" Hermione asked, hands on hips.

"'Like' where have you been?" Ginny spluttered, getting to her feet. "Draco and Ron getting nicked for pimping and prostitution under the pseudo names Snakemaster Malfoy Smoove and The Big Dipper? How did you miss that?"

"I didn't miss it," Hermione groaned. "Of course I didn't. But I hardly see what Ron's penis has to do with us."

"Well, not his really his penis, per se, although it is what's gotten him in bother—" Ginny said ruefully.

"My God, Ginny, do you really think I care about Ron's endowment? I don't care if it's big enough to be set free in the lake and be mistaken for Nessie's twin brother – I. Don't. Care. His penis is none of my concern. None of yours either, I could add," Hermione fumed.

"If you'd listen for a minute," Ginny said severely, holding until she had Hermione's full cooperation. "Then I could tell you that things are insane with my family right now – and that's why. And if we were open then they'd have to deal with me going out with my brothers ex as well as gigolo Ron – who has the worst hooker name in the world, by the way – The Big Dipper, for crying out loud! At his arrest, he claimed it made more sense with the by-line 'The Best Ride of Your Life'. But you can't add a by-line to a hooker name. You can't add a by-line to any name! He's always been so hideously, unimaginative thick. I don't know why Malfoy didn't talk him out of it…"

"Ginny!" Hermione shouted, her fists curled into balls. "Stop! No more! I don't care if it looks like a creature that'll wrap itself around my body and squeeze me until my ribs crack and my lungs burst – I am not talking about Ron's penis anymore! And frankly, I find it insane that you're willing to talk about it so much. It should be not seen, not heard and not thought of. I don't need to know what's going on south of Ron's belt buckle. And frankly it's a little creepy that you do."

"I don't!" Ginny spat, disgusted.

"Good!" Hermione yelled back. "Well… well, good."

A stubborn silence fell between the two. In such a small space, it was very difficult to stew for too long: and they both knew this fact very well.

"Look," Hermione sighed finally, crouching down to unzip her bag. "I brought this with me. I thought it might help the conversation."

Hesitantly, Hermione handed a book up to Ginny who tilted it towards the small pockets of light that hung on the walls in glass containers: they looked like many fireflies in a jar and dimly lit the room beautifully. It saved one of them having to use their wands. Ginny was fond of her achievements in mood lighting. She had invented and printed up a fact-sheet on lighting in storage cupboards, which she sneaked into Filch's copy of Janitor's Friend Weekly. This fact-sheet recommended that cupboards or closets storing wooden objects, such as mops or brooms, be lit with soft everlasting House Elf light – handily available to purchase in a wall-affixable canisters. Not only was it environmentally friendly but the soft light ensured no harm would be done to the wood; whereas normal fire light or electric light was often abrasive and unforgiving. Ginny was glad that Filch was so bloody gullible – who else would have believed that light would cause damage to wood? It was then that she knew that he must really love his mops.

"Coming out for Beginners," Ginny read the book title aloud, hoping it was somehow a joke. "Seriously? Coming out for Beginners?"

"I thought that we could talk about this…" Hermione muttered. "How best to do this…"

"Surely that's a paradox, or something," Ginny scoffed, turning it over in her hands, noticing the picture of the girl and boy smiling while draped in a rainbow flag. He was wearing a tight tank top and she was wearing dungarees. Ginny made a small contemptuous noise in the back of her throat. "You'd have to be a beginner at coming out because if you were an expert then you wouldn't need to come out because you'd already done it and if you were an expert then why would you need a book—?"

"Shut up, Ginny," Hermione blushed madly. "It was the only book I could get delivered here. Waterstones doesn't deliver by owl, apparently."

"Well, I can already tell that it's bollocks," Ginny said dismissively, handing the book back to a hurt Hermione.

"Right," Hermione replied tightly, gripping the book and staring down at it.

"And you're unbelievable," Ginny grinned playfully. "You broke up with Ron because of his book and know you've got a book to keep us together."

"Oh, Ginny, it's hardly the same thing!" Hermione groaned, shoving it back in her bag. "I just want to talk about this – really talk about it properly. I'm sick of hiding away and I know you are too: which is why you flake every so often and decide we can't be together and then the very next day I get a note begging to meet here. I like what we have and I'm not willing to let it go because 'There's so much stuff going on'. There's always going to be something going on. And frankly it's really hurtful that you're always trying to throw me away and claim that we have nothing together when it really isn't true!"

Ginny remorsefully shook her head and sighed.

"I'm so sorry, I know. I can't help it," Ginny mumbled.

At this, Hermione softened and pulled the taller girl into her arms, stroking her hair.

"I'm sorry. It's just sometimes I think this is too much. I think I feel too much. And I panic, thinking it's better to set it adrift now before too much time has passed and I'm drowning and then you let me go and then I'll be completely useless without you," Ginny mumbled despondently.

"You don't have to be useless without me," Hermione smiled sadly, holding Ginny close. "After all, you can be useless with me."

Ginny pulled back with a smirk, allowing herself to brighten. She playfully pretended to be annoyed at such an insult before giving in and kissing Hermione chastely. Not before long, the kiss deepened, lust assumed control and they became the consummate fierce, raw force together that they could only dream of when apart.

"You realise this is the fourth time you've tried to break this off?" Hermione whispered into Ginny's ear as she felt a hand on her back, slipping underneath her shirt.

"And I'm always the first one back here," Ginny sighed as Hermione kissed her collarbone. "You do things to me…"

"I know I do," Hermione grinned, bringing her lips to Ginny's. "How much time do you think we have before Filch gets back from his evening rounds?"

"Dunno, we haven't heard Peeves banging the ten minute warning yet so we'll just work to the buzzer," Ginny grinned, devouring Hermione. The system they had worked out for using the mop cupboard was quite dependant on Peeves' cooperation: something which Hermione was insistent on not trusting, given his fondness for pranks. Ginny however was convinced that he wouldn't let them down; she was glad of her family name and the reputation Fred and George had left for her in regards to Peeves.

Together, they had worked out Filch's schedule and bargained with Peeves for his assistance. He was to either give them an extra hour here and there by creating havoc to occupy Filch; or to float around the floor, ready to alert them if Filch was seen coming in their direction. For two months the system had worked flawlessly and Filch was none the wiser to the reason he was being manipulated into fixing up their little love cave which they inhabited every evening without fail.

"I think we need to give up the mop cupboard, Gin," Hermione said breathlessly, pulling herself back from a passionate kiss.

"No," Ginny shook her head, laughing heartily. "No, not the Mop Cupboard of Love. Not our little love nest, our getaway. We couldn't. I was going to engineer the arrival of an ice sculpture next."

"Well, we can still come back here, it'd be a shame not to considering all the work you've put in it, but I think we need to learn to snog in front of the fire in the common room like other couples," Hermione said seriously.

"Other couples are disgusting," Ginny sniffed, wrinkling her nose. "And we don't have much longer left tonight and we've wasted a lot of it with me trying to break up with you; so can't we talk about this another time? There'll hardly be enough time for another snog and a grope the rate you're going."

"Grope?" Hermione smirked, arching her eyebrow. "How romantic."

"What would you rather, dear Hermione?" Ginny hissed pleasantly into Hermione's skin, the reverberations travelling down her spine. "Felt you up? Copped a feel? Fumbled in the goody chest? Fondled your funbags?

"I don't know how on earth you just made 'fondled your funbags' sound sexy – but you did. Remarkable," Hermione gasped, enjoying the sensations Ginny was drawing from her body.

"I'll take that as an open invitation," Ginny chuckled, her nails gently raking on Hermione's stomach.

"Oh - do," Hermione murmured, closing her eyes before realising she had been completely duped. Appalled at how easy she had been to manipulate, Hermione pushed Ginny back the short distance to the other wall.

"Ow! What the Hell, Hermione?" Ginny whined, holding her elbow up for inspection and pouting her lip.

"Stop moaning, you're not hurt," Hermione rolled her eyes, before giving the red elbow a quick, cordial kiss, as was now customary when one of them hurt themselves. Hermione once kissed Ginny's skinned knee in the Quidditch locker room as she thought everyone had left, but Harry walked in and she had some explaining to do.

"I was… sucking pus. I was sucking the pus out of her knee. Because… That's what you do," she had stammered, her face inflamed. "Pus makes it worse. You can't apply healing tonic if there's pus there… Because the pus reacts. Because the pus is the natural body's defence and magic… Isn't. So I sucked the pus. You would suck your friends pus if they couldn't get to it, wouldn't you?"

Harry had simply burst out laughing and left. Hermione didn't blame him. She was quite sure she never had nor ever would say 'pus' as many times in one breath. She felt quite sick until Ginny dipped forward and planted a soft kiss on her forehead.

"You're lucky it was Harry that walked in," Ginny had said, infinitely amused. "Because if it had been a twerpy wee thirteen year old, then all you would've gotten from the third years would be them following you about, chorusing 'Suck my pus, Head Girl! Suck my pus!" and thinking themselves so cool for such witty sexually suggestive remarks."

Hermione knew they were both thinking back to the very same incident as their eyes met in the mop cupboard and they both burst out laughing.

"Pus?" Hermione grimaced, stifling her giggles.

"Pus," Ginny affirmed, reaching forward to pull Hermione into an embrace. Ginny sighed through her laughs. She tried to calm herself down but was unable to successfully deflate the ever expanding bubble of happiness she felt burgeoning inside of her as she burrowed her face in Hermione's hair. "God, you're wonderful Hermione," she sighed, through tears induced by laughter. And without pause, without contemplation, without planning and without knowing, she breathed out in the only thought in her mind in the most natural fashion: "I love you."

It seemed that Hermione had stopped breathing and had frozen in her arms. It took Ginny several moments to realise why. A tirade of swear words paraded through her panicked mind before Hermione awoke and drew back from her. Ginny didn't want to open her eyes and see the expression on Hermione's face. Exasperated, annoyed, furious: it could be any one of those.

It wasn't. Hermione gentle fingertips on her cheek urged her to open her eyes and when she did, Ginny saw that what Hermione was feeling was nothing remotely close to what she feared.

"I love you," Hermione returned sincerely, not dropping her gaze.

Ginny instinctively wanted to insert a quip to diffuse the intensity of the situation but thought better of it. Instead of shying from it, she revelled in the heat of moment by pushing Hermione back against the wall to divulge as much of her surging passion into the kiss as possible.

Heady kisses and uncontrollable grins were a feature of the next period of timeless ecstasy. Not a word was spoken until the unwelcome sound of the warning was heard: a series of thuds against the mop cupboard door, that sounded like gunfire, to indicate that their bliss would be interrupted.

"Ignore it," Hermione urged Ginny, not ready to stop their amorous embrace just yet.

"We can't," Ginny gasped, reluctantly pulling back from Hermione. "Unless we want to get caught again."

Still the hail of fruit continued on the front of the door. Ginny stuck her head out of the cupboard and her eyes immediately found the poltergeist.

"Yes, Peeves, I heard, thank you!" she hissed, making a hand gesture for him to remove himself from the area. He returned with a rude hand gesture which indicated his displeasure at such a request.

Ginny slammed the door and grunted, very frustrated at the time constraints on their relationship. Surely it's a relationship now? Ginny thought. After the 'I love you's', it just has to be.

"We should go," Hermione sighed, defeated as she picked up her backpack as Ginny opened the door. Light and cold air flooded into their little cavern.

"Yeah, we should," Ginny replied with a sly grin as she slid her hand into Hermione's to lead her out of the cupboard. "Wanna go snog by the fire in the common room?"

Hermione struggled to find words for a moment as her face nearly broke from the extent of her own grins. As they stepped out of the cupboard onto the landing, two younger Ravenclaws passed them by, giving a funny sideways glance at the two well known Gryffindor girls holding hands and looking very intimate.

Hermione refused to wipe the smile from her face as she pecked Ginny's cheek and said, "I can't think why not."