Hermione was not amused. "You're not doing it right, Ron", she said.Ron shrugged. "But this is how wizards and witchs sail" he said.
"But we are meant to be learning about muggle sailing" Hermione said, "and muggle boats float in the water, not two metres above it. And the sails are all wrong as is the replacement for the diesel engine."
Ron turned to Harry. "What to you think?" he asked.
Harry sighed. It was meant to be a pleasant day out to recover from the battle to defeat ultimate evil himself, Voldemort, but as usual his friends bickering put a damper on it. Would they never get to see the Chesapeake Bay's legendary fire crabs cake-walk?
"Well Ron", he said, "I can see what Hermione means about the sail. Replacing a Bermuda rig and custom North Sails by a Pirates of the Caribbean style square rigger with sails full of hole's isn't that authentic is it?"
"But it looks better! Much more spooky - and we are being propelled by magic not aerodynamics so what do the holes matter? Anyhow, you must admit the backup engine is a lot better than diesel".
Harry said nothing. In his heart of hearts he had to agree that a Bulgarian dragon attached to a tow rope was a lot cooler than a Volvo Penta engine.
At that moment the ship juddered to a halt.
"What the?" they said as one.
Harry waved his wand as he had seen Dumbledore do. He frowned "Seems like we've been stopped by powerful counter-magic spell".
Herminone waved her wand as Dumbledore actually did it. "We have encountered a level 2 African charm to prevent witches from approaching a certain....". She waved her wand again and out of its tip swarmed fire flies that darted from side to side until arranging them selves into the letters "S A R A H P A L I N".
There was silence for a moment, then Ron said "So there's nothing to stop wizards then".
Harry glared at him but it was too late as Hermione said "No there isn't Mr Ron Weasley and if you feel like that I turned down an invite from Ginny to go to a Weird Sisters concert and if I'm not wanted here then I'll see you later". With a flash she had disparated and was gone.
"Oh" said Ron.
"You've done it now" said Harry, as the boat started to move again.
"At least we'll get to see the fire crabs"
"Yup - but will Hermione forgive you?"
There was a silence, till Ron said wistfully "Maybe its time to practice those African counter charm curses!"
