In Transfiguration class, the class received some news. A Yule ball was being held during Christmas break. From that moment on, a lot of girls were giggling in the halls and passing notes to each other. Ron knew a lot of girls would be asking Harry to go with them much to Ron's dismay. Ron knew there was one girl that Harry was bound to ask sooner or later and that was Cho Chang of Ravenclaw. What was so special about her anyway? She wasn't all that good of a seeker to him, but then again she was very pretty. If he went with her, he'd die inside.

"Are you going with anyone to the Yule ball, Ron?" asked Neville as the two were playing some more wizard chest.

"No…I don't think I will. Everyone wants either one of the champions or someone better looking." Ron sighed.

"Maybe…well they're only 4 champions so we're bound to get asked out, right?" said Neville hopefully.

"Maybe." said Ron, but on the inside he was thinking, 'I hope not. If Harry asked me…'

"Who do you think Harry's going with? I saw a couple of 2nd and 3rd years ask him."

"Probably Cho Chang…he's rather…fond of her." Ron said bitterly. The brunette noticed this.

"Do you like Cho too?" Neville asked. "She is very pretty."

Ron did not answer his question as he turned red in the face. He was about to admit that he liked Harry, but luckily caught himself quickly before he could. The angry voice didn't seem to appreciate this. 'Oh great! Now Longbottom thinks we like her!'

'Well its better than admitting we like Harry, isn't it?' the other voice said.

'Oh…I hadn't thought about that.'

"Who are you asking, Neville?" said the ginger deciding to change the subject.

"I was thinking of asking Hermione. She's always so nice to me, so I thought it would be nice if I took her to the dance." he said turning red himself.

"I'm sure she'd like that, Neville." said Ron rather truthfully. "After all, I'm pretty sure no one has asked her yet."

"O-okay…but truth be told, I'm a little nervous about asking her." He confessed blushing even more.

"If you want I could ask her myself." offered Ron. To be honest he was only doing it because he wanted to see who Harry was going with. It was killing him not knowing.

"Would you?"

"Yeah. We are friends, aren't we?" he smiled.

"Y-yeah…" Neville felt extremely happy to know this. "Thanks Ron."

When he got around to asking, he found out that Hermione had been asked out by someone. Who that was, he didn't know. Ron couldn't help but wonder who the heck asked Hermione out of all of the pretty girls in Hogwarts. He decided he could not worry about that right now and decided to try and see who Harry was going out with if he could avoid being direct because he knew what she would say if he asked.

"Have you asked anyone yet?" asked Hermione.

"Hm? Oh no. I'm not going." Ron shrugged. "I don't know how to dance very well. Besides, I wouldn't be caught dead in those things mom packed me."

"Well Harry doesn't want to go either." The brunette started to say more, but stopped herself and looked at the ginger, worrying that he might say something. To her surprise, he didn't get upset about it.

"Then why doesn't he just stay then?"

'Probably because he's going with that whore, Cho Chang.' said the angry voice.

"He's being forced to go. Apparently all of the champions are required to go." she said just as she finished another hat for the house elves. "I just hope he finds a date in time. He's having a really hard time."

"Really?" Ron said shocked. "I would have thought everyone would have wanted to go out with Mr. Famous."

"Apparently not."

Ron was a bit happier after this piece of info. When the date for the Yule ball finally came, Ron was itching to see who Harry was going with. All of the people in his dorm room had dates and were putting on their suits. Ron was glad he wasn't going. Everyone's looked much better than his old rags and he did not want to embarrass himself with the frilly thing. Once everyone had gone out, only he and Neville reminded inside the room.

"I'm so nervous." confessed Neville to Ron.

"How so?"

"I-I'm not a good dancer." he admitted.

"You'll be fine. Just follow Ginny's lead and you'll do slightly better." reassured Ron, however he didn't even know if Ginny even knew how to dance herself. The very next day, Neville told Ron about the Yule ball including the fact that Hermione went out with Krum, which shocked Ron. His jealous inner self (not surprisingly) was shocked too. 'VIKTOR KRUM AND HERMIONE!? HOW?! WHY!? SHE ISN'T EVEN THAT PRETTY!'

"I can see why he asked her. She looked really pretty." he said blushing. Ron was relieved when Neville got to the part about the champions and their dates. Cho had gone with Cedric and Harry had gone out with Parvati. Parvati was an okay looking girl, but Harry undoubtfully only went with her to the ball because she was one of the few girls who didn't get asked. Ron was relieved and knew he could sleep easy tonight.


Once Christmas got around, Ron stayed in bed a bit longer to avoid any contact with Harry. The thought of Christmas being today made him sick anyway. He didn't hate Christmas (far from it), but he didn't want anyone to see what he was planning on doing with his presents. Once he was sure that Harry had opened up his gifts and gone to eat breakfast, he went downstairs and opened up his gifts. As usual, Ron was given a sweater from his mother and mince pies. There was a gift from Hermione too in there. It was one of her knitted hats and a book about quidditch. Neville had gotten him a gift too. It was a qudditch book full of pictures of various qudditch players and their information.

'None from that asshole, I see.' his jealous voice said bitterly.

'Can you blame him?' his quieter side said.

'Well we got him a gift!'

'We did?'

'Yeah the gift of us not murdering him!'

'Anybody could do that and that's not a nice thing to say!'

While his two inner sides bickered, Ron took his sweater and burned it along with the pies. He smiled a little as it burned. He had always hated getting that sweater every year. He never really wore it and it brought great satisfaction that he was finally burning it in the safety of the common room with no one around.

'Why are you doing that?!' the normally quiet voice said a little loudly. 'Your mother…'

'I really don't care.' Ron thought back bitterly. 'She doesn't care what I do if her precious Harry is okay.'

'You're insulting the woman who gave birth to you!'

'The exact same woman who would rather me die than have her little Harry die.' His angry voice said before Ron could.

As Ron watched the flames, Harry had come back into the common room. Ron chose to ignore him as he watched the sweater burn. Harry noticed the sweater and frowned. "Why are you burning that?"

"None of your business." Ron snapped suddenly wishing he had waited until night time to burn the thing. What if Harry told his mother?

'You know what? I don't care!' He decided. Even if his mother sent a holler, it was no skin off his bones. He never liked the things anyway even if they went one of the few new things he got as all of his things were hand-me-downs.

Ron watched the thing burn for a while before heading down to breakfast with the others, feeling just a little bad about what he had done, but would not bring himself to admit it. The raven, however, spoke to him again. "Your mom worked really hard making that for you."

"Does it look like I care?" he snapped. He got up before Harry could say anymore and left out of the room. He was glad it was Harry who had walked in instead of Hermione or one of his siblings. Then he'd never hear the end of it from any of them, especially Percy who would surely write to his mother.

"Ron can I ask you something?" said Ginny coming up to Ron who was studying an upcoming test in Transfiguration.

"What?" Ron asked not looking at his sister.

"Why did you burn your sweater?"

"How did you know about that?"

"Hermione told me. You've been acting really funny lately and you haven't been talking to Harry either." Ginny said worriedly. "Is something wrong?"

'Of course he would run and tell Hermione.' his inner voice said angrily. 'What was she gonna do anyway?'

"Why are you so concerned about Harry and my relationship?" asked Ron. "It's got nothing to do with you, even if you do have a crush on him."

"Why aren't you?" asked Ginny quite coolly, although she was turning a little pink.

"Because...well I don't have to tell you anything. It's none of your business." snapped Ron. "It's none of your business if I hang out with him or not…or are you thinking that Harry might not want to come around the house anymore if I stopped being friends with him?"

"No, I'm not." said Ginny, although Ron could tell she was lying. "I just don't want to hear you complaining about not having anyone to talk to and hanging around with me all the time."

"Liar and for your information, Neville and I are friends, so I don't know what you're talking about. I'd rather lick the bottom of Mad Eye's magical eye than hang out with you. Just admit it, Ginny. You're only concerned because of Harry. You know what, you can go fuck yourself. You're nothing but a selfish bitch. I wish you would have died in that delivery room, so I wouldn't have to look at your disgusting face."

Ron stood up and went into the bedroom not feeling bad about he said, although a tiny part of him knew he didn't mean it…fully…When Ginny was born, she was a weak little thing and would have died if not for luck. Ginny had fought for her life in the hospital and pulled through despite the healers saying that she probably would not pull through. When Ginny found this out, she admitted to Ron that it kind of scared her to think about it and indeed it affected her deeply. By Ron saying what he had wished she was dead, he wondered if Ginny would tell his mother or, even worse, Fred and George. He wondered if he should apologize to her before the twins did anything, but decided he didn't care.