A/N: I don't own anything - it's JK Rowling's. A one-shot for LynxMalfoy's Random Prompt competition. My prompts: Title - Feverish. Character - Ron Weasley. Prompt – Textbook.
I've really got to start timing my fights with Hermione better, Ron thought as he sat in the Common Room, a textbook in hand. He wasn't even sure what she was mad about. He'd been talking with Harry at dinner about how they didn't know any girls to ask to the Yule Ball when she'd stormed off. Now he was left alone to write a six-inch essay for potions.
The book was stiff as he opened it for the first time all year. He found the chapter he was supposed to be reading and thought about the essay question Snape had assigned. How the bloody hell was he supposed to know what would happen if you left boomslang skin out of Polyjuice Potion? After all, it had been Hermione who'd done all the research second year. It had also been Hermione who had more or less written his papers for the last three years.
Ron looked across the room to where Hermione sat alone, her own nose buried in some book that he was fairly certain she was reading for fun. His parchment still had nothing more than a sloppy attempt at writing his own name in the top corner, and it was after eleven o'clock.
He was brave. He was courageous. He was a Gryffindor! He was willing to do anything to get out of writing this essay. "Um, Hermione?" He tentatively called out across the room. In that moment her book seemed to get even more interesting than it was just moments previously. She was a lost cause. He sighed and put his quill to paper. "After extensive research, I found-" He magicked the words away to try again. "Making the dumb mistake of forgetting boomslang skin in Polyjuice Potion results in-" Ron returned his paper to its 'name and title' state as his eyes glazed over and his mind began to wander. He was shaken suddenly just in time to keep drool from falling onto his still-blank essay.
"Ron, are you okay? You look feverish." Harry asked him, taking the chair across from him.
"Um, yeah, fine." Ron wiped the sweat from his brow and blinked a few times, trying to remove the blurriness from his vision. "Just, er, writing this essay."
"Sure, mate. Looks like you're doing well on it. Hermione still won't talk to you, huh?"
"Nope. I tried to get her attention a little while ago. No help at all. Not even a sympathetic glance."
"She won't talk to me either, not much at least. I tried to ask her for help when I saw her in the library with Vikt- when she was alone." An awkward pause. "Of course she was alone, as she's not talking to her only friends," Harry added rather quickly. "Well, should we get to work on this essay then?"
"If we have to. Do you think Snape actually reads these?" Ron remembered the red ink smeared across his last essay in tiny illegible handwriting and regretted his question.
The next morning, Ron was still slumped over in the chair, a few meager sentences scrawled underneath his essay title. He was talking in his sleep. "Er-my-nee, need you. Can't do it. Will fail. Expelled... Held back... Er-my-nee... Er-my-nee... Er-my-nee..."
"Ron, you incompetent git, wake up already!"
"Er-my-nee?" Ron queried groggily.
"Who else would I be? Now you need to get yourself awake and working if you're going to be able to finish this essay before class. I'll bring you some breakfast from the Great Hall. There is no way you are going down there. You'll hide and won't come back."
"You're actually going to help me?" Ron asked.
"Merlin knows you need it. Harry somehow managed to finish his. I've made my corrections. Now it's just you and me to get this finished."
Ron looked up at his bushy-haired, angry friend, still confused. "So, you forgive me for whatever the hell I did wrong?"
"No. But you need to pass if you're going to stay around long enough for me to ignore you properly."
She sat close to him as she worked, half-explaining how the absence of boomslang skin would render Polyjuice Potion unusable, but mostly just dictating to him what to write and complaining about his handwriting. Her leg touched his as they worked and he paid little attention to what she was saying. Sometimes their fingers brushed and Ron wondered if he could get away with squeezing her hand, just something reassuring, for helping him with his essay. Not for any other reason, of course. He thought better of the idea when he realized just how clammy and moist his hands were. His heart raced as Hermione helped him rush to make the deadline for their essay. Merlin: clammy hands, a racing heart, maybe Harry was right after all. Homework did make him feverish.