Hermione Granger and the Red-headed League
All Hermione wanted to do was get some proper leisure reading in for once. She was finished with her pre-holiday exams, she'd already done the massive essay Snape had assigned his advanced Potions class for over Christmas, and she was ready to spend some time relaxing.
The rest of the students at Hogwarts, hyped up on large quantities candy and holiday cheer, had other ideas.
"Bam! I'm Rick James," Ginny shrieked as she slid down the banister into the common room. Most curiously, she was wearing a plaid jumper with pink and gold striped tights. Tightly clipped on the ends of the braids that hung on either side of her head were reindeer barrettes that chanted softly, 'Happy Christmas ho ho ho, Happy Christmas ho ho ho.'
Hermione glanced up sharply. Big mistake.
"Helllllllllo, Hermione!" Ginny greeted, still shrieking. "I just love Christmas, how 'bout you?"
"Ginny," muttered Hermione. "Has anyone ever explained that there's such a thing as too much butterbeer?"
Ginny caught the word 'butterbeer' and yelled with delight.
"Ooooh, I just love that stuff too! Seamus gave me a whole carton of it for only five galleons and me 'n Victoria split it and it's fantastic, enormously fantastic!"
"Uh, the boys just went down for a snowball fight on the lawn near Hagrid's. They said to invite you if I saw you."
"Great! Wonderful! I just love snowball fights!"
Ginny exited in a flurry of frizzy red hair.
"Thank goodness," Hermione said to herself, and went back to her book. Oddly enough, it was a fantasy, complete with wizards, griffins, dragons, and demons. Several minutes later, the portrait hole was slammed open and Hermione yelped, so engrossed in her book that she forgot where she was.
"Ron!" she exclaimed with relief. And it was indeed Ron, but he was red-faced and there was an angry set to his mouth that spelled trouble.
"Oh, don't you Ron me," he snarled at her, and stormed up to the boys dormitory.
"What did I do?" Hermione shouted frantically after him.
"You, them, it doesn't matter who, you're all the same," came the reply.
"Now I am truly confused," Hermione said to the empty common room.
"If you're so set on pretending you care, go down to the Great Hall and have a little laugh!" Ron yelled down the stairs, and immediately the sound of a door slamming followed.
Hermione settled back down to read, but her forehead kept crinkling with confusion and curiosity. She knew she wouldn't be able to concentrate unless she found out what Ron was so nattered about. Rather than risk having things thrown at her, she put down her book and headed to the Great Hall.
There didn't seem to be much going on. The ruckus at the other end was being caused by Ginny's friend Victoria Hanley, who was dancing wildly on top of the Hufflepuff table, much to the pleasure of the male contingent located there. It did not seem to have anything to do with Ron. Hermione turned on a group of boys sidling from one corner toward the door. Harry was embedded within the group, a disconcerted habit he and Ron had taken up lately. She plunged amid the boys and seized his arm.
"What has Ron in such a mood?" she inquired.
"Oh, that." Harry shifted guiltily. "It's a bit easier to let you see then explain. They've moved down to the kitchens, that's where we were headed."
And Hermione found herself part of a detestable posse, if you will, though it was more like a many-headed organism than anything definable with a leader.
The sound of chanting shortly reached her ears. Hermione discovered that she was beginning to loathe chanting. It blurred a bit as she began to pick out figures picketing back and forth in front of the bowl of fruit portrait. They were holding signs that displayed the faces of the Weasley twins, a young Dumbledore, and various other people, all with one thing in common: red hair. As she neared, the chanting clarified into, "Free the Redheads! Free the Redheads!" A carrot-topped house elf soared over the crowd on the shoulders of one of the protesters.
"Of all the—"Hermione began exasperatedly. Not only was it a ridiculous spectacle, but it had attracted more people, believers and spectators alike, than her S.P.E.W. protests ever had.
"She's here!" yelped a third year waving a picture of Donagan Tremlett with auburn streaks in his hair.
"She's here, she's here!" echoed his fellows. Hands pulled and grabbed at Hermione and she was tugged up the stairs, through the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, and up to the boys' dorm. There the crowd fell in behind her expectantly as Ron stood up from where he had been sulking on his bed.
"So it's come to this, has it?" he demanded. Hermione just looked, at a complete loss. "I didn't want to do this, you know, but you've left me no choice."
This is all some bizarre dream, thought Hermione as Ron retrieved a jar of Floo Powder from his bedside table.
"The Burrow," he shouted, throwing an expansive amount of the stuff on the fire.
"The Burrow, the Burrow," reiterated the crowd (it was their best skill), and Hermione was pushed into the fire after Ron. The bodies attached to the pushing hands followed.
Coughing and hacking, Hermione pushed her way out of the fireplace and into the midst of the Weasleys' kitchen, looking more disordered then she'd ever seen it. Standing next to the sink was an apparition out of a nightmare: Martha Stewart.
"At last!" she screeched. "Revenge will be mine!"
And she seized Ron with a hand encased in a manacle with a broken chain hanging from it.
"No!" yelled the redhead protesters, surging forward. Some sort of invisible force shoved them to the side as they approached. Ron was not helpless, however. He sank his teeth into Martha's well-manicured hand.
"Ow! You bit me!" exclaimed Martha. She twisted his ear, rendering him incapable of resistance, and dragged him into the dining room. There sat Mrs. Weasley, calmly peeling potatoes. Without looking up, she said, somewhat maliciously, "Nice jumpsuit, darling. I've heard prison stripes are all the rage in Hogsmeade."
Martha Stewart made a noise akin to a growl.
"I have you now, Molly. I have your precious youngest son."
"Ron," he interjected from between gritted teeth.
"You have Ronald," Molly said, finally looking up. "Very well. But you didn't bet on that, now did you?"
And she pointed straight at Hermione.
"Huh?" said Hermione, utterly bemused. She sensed the redheaded league fill in behind her and thought that perhaps Mrs. Weasley meant them, but Martha Stewart was looking at her with such loathing and despair that Hermione knew Mrs. Weasley meant her.
"Your chapstick, Hermione!" gasped Ron. "Throw it here!"
Hermione stared at him as she fumbled in her pocket. Whatever could he mean, her chapstick? She pulled it out and held it up. Ordinary cherry chapstick. She tossed it at him.
Martha let go of Ron to knock it out of the air, which enabled Ron to knock her down. He snatched it and held it up, beaming with joy. A golden light seemed to emanate from him, most abundantly in the hand holding the chapstick.
Mrs. Weasley pitched potatoes at each of the protesters, and they beat Martha Stewart repeatedly until she had become a round gooey gray blob that reeked of things better left alone.
Though she was aware of this, Hermione's attention stayed upon Ron. He promptly turned his rapt gaze from the chapstick to Hermione. Hermione's face grew hot, and she found it necessary to look away. Much to her surprise, Harry stood there. He had snuck in behind the protesters.
"But I don't understand!" she wailed at him. Harry always had the answers that Hermione didn't.
"You don't?" he asked, smiling slightly. "It's simple, really. Everyone always hears about Dumbledore and Voldemort, and, well, me of course. But that's because the writer is a sexist pig"—oops, sorry, Harry didn't actually say that—"er, male biased. You see, the chief female evil in this world is—was—Martha Stewart." He indicated the mess on the floor. "Mrs. Weasley was her, er, arch nemesis, you might say. However, they were in a deadlock until you came along."
"Me?" asked Hermione, incredulous.
"Yes," Harry insisted. "Not you on your own, but because you and Ron are soul mates—"
"What?" she yelled, glancing quickly at Ron and away again. She continued in a whisper, "But I don't like Ron that way! I don't."
"Think about it, Mio. How do you really feel?"
She started to protest again, but stopped. How did she feel? She certainly like Ron, liked him a lot. But the same could be said of Harry. Without Ron, there would be a void in the middle of her, but if one of her parents left, or, once again, Harry, she would be just as desolate. And he was much more irritating than Harry or her parents. No, she definitely did not like Ron in that way. But—her face flooded red again, reminding her of what had just happened. When Ron turned and looked at her so—lovingly, she felt all fluttery inside, like in those stupid slushy romance novels Lavender had made her read, the ones that always ended with the heroine kissing the hero and then them marrying and living happily ever after. I refuse to be a heroine! Hermione thought stubbornly. Still, there was no way out of what she felt. Was it possible, that without realizing it, she had fallen in love with Ron? She sneaked a longer glance at him. It seemed so.
"Ach—" she said at Harry. He merely nodded. "But, what's that to do with any of this? The whole power struggle, I mean."
"Mrs. Weasley finally had enough good to triumph over Martha. She planted false information for Martha's spies to pick up, indicating that Ron was Mrs. Weasley's weakness. 'Free the Redheads' over there are the junior section of Mrs. Weasley's organization, sort of like the Order, only public with a fake purpose."
Ron would get angry, knowing his mother had her own organization. Especially if the others had made fun of it. Ron's emotions worked in a mad-seeming circle that actually made perfect sense. She snuck a third glance at him, admiring his large nose.
"You come in here. When Ron asked for your chapstick, unconsciously you transferred your love, your life force or soul, if you will, into it, because his need seemed so urgent. Martha Stewart was under the delusion that in the chapstick resided a neutral power that she could use for evil and was weakened when she attempted to seize it, enabling the junior league and Mrs. Weasley to beat her into her true and feeble state with ordinary potatoes."
Hermione looked back at the gray blob. The protesters had chalked a pentagram around it and now stood in a semi circle, arms raised. Hermione shuddered as they began chanting.
"To complete Martha's demise," Harry explained.
"Okay," Hermione said slowly. "But I still have one more question."
"Shoot."
"How on earth do you know all this?"
"Er," he said, looking bashful. "My Occlumency's getting better."
In the end, the gray stuff that had been Martha Stewart vanished in a puff of noxious fumes. The Junior League disbanded for the day, with plans to go bird watching for red-breasted robins the next week. Mrs. Weasley gathered up the potatoes and, sighing, took them to the wastebin outside. And Ron handed Hermione back her chapstick.
"No, I think it's yours," she told him. His face lit up, and he tried to vanquish the gap between their faces. Hermione, thinking of her resolve not to be a cheap heroine, pushed him away, smiling.
"You can help me study for Transfiguration," she said, slipping her hand in his.
"You mean you can help me study for Transfiguration," he answered.
"Something like that."
And they returned to Hogwarts.
.
Author's note: It's very strange, yes. The funny thing is, I hate Ron/Hermione. But it was where this story was going, and I know better than to fight the Muses. If I get good reviews, it was worth the yucky.