"It's bad enough Mum told me to watch you, but hiding and disappearing only makes things worse."
"There's no need to watch me, Ronald." she returned, using his proper name to annoy him. "Do what you will, but leave me alone."
Ron would have liked nothing better than to do just that, but he knew better than to let her have her way.
"Then tell me if you see something." he muttered, compromising as she walked off. He imagined his father would say she was like their mother when she was a girl, but for the life of him he could not imagine how any of them had been born. Fred and George had told him essentially that it took two to tango, which he should have figured, as there was usually a father and he had to do something. His own father, however, had never once given him reason to be confused as to why he was necessary.
Going to his first few classes of the day, he found his wand worked a little better than the last one had, which made sense by Hermione's insight on wandlore, though he had not mentioned it to her. Charms with the Ravenclaws were expected to be quiet affairs and he found himself sitting apart from her that particular day.
Their first conversation of the year had been at breakfast that morning.
"Hi, Hermione."
"Ron." She sat down across from him. "How was summer?" she asked conversationally, some amount of annoyance in her voice. He had forgotten why she had arrived by portkey, though it probably had her in one of her moods again.
"Not really fun. I wasn't allowed to fly around, with You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters being back and all."
There it was. It was the unspoken reality that seemed govern the very stars, the new division of history after Anno Domini- Anno Domini Obscuri as his followers had fashioned it. In the year of the Dark Lord- I'd like to have seen them tearing up their calendars when he died.
Hermione sighed, slumping forward.
"What?"
"I just can't for the life of me-" she started, setting her fork down. "-see why any of this is my fault."
"Well, it's not really your fault." he had responded, thinking about it. "It's not really anyone's fault, except maybe the Inspectors'. If they hadn't been in the way, I reckon Dumbledore could have helped."
"Wonderful- just tell that to everyone who's trying to get me more involved than I want to be." she breathed as she rose and left.
He spotted Dean presently staring at his work in the common room, his quill hardly moving where Ron had gone to study apart from Hermione, and by study he mostly meant to practice. He had most of the spells he learned the previous year mastered well enough, which was at least more entertaining than staring at books to learn about them. The trick was casting them silently, which would be faster and harder to block. He imagined Ginny would be more than capable of looking after herself sooner or later, but he was going to have to get stronger anyway. If Hermione was getting questioned about a Death Eater attack, no one was safe, not her, not him, and not Ginny.
As for Dean, though, he was uncertain.
From taking the occasional glance at his papers, Ron gathered the boy appeared to have taken an interest in Alchemy, and received high enough marks for all of his work, though there were multiple possible explanations. If he had died and come back to life, he had every expectation the teachers would be tossing him a few Quaffles to the center hoop every so often.
"Dean, did you die?" he asked, not quite sure what came over him.
"It's possible." the boy responded without seeming to consider the awkwardness of the question. Fortunately there was no one else in the room. "What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Seamus said you died."
"I might have, Ron. I don't know." Dean stated rather clearly, not appearing to have any other response. "What am I meant to say about it?"
"I'm not sure." he confessed.
"Neither am I." the other wizard muttered, exhaling. "I'd really rather be left alone about it, to be honest."
Tired of dead-ended conversation, Ron looked for the twins, who could reliably be found playing Exploding Snap in the courtyard. At least I have some idea of what to expect from them. Well, I have an idea that it'll end up with a joke at my expense or some sort of prank. Thinking on it a moment, he was still happy they had seemed to forgive him for enlisting them in a prank on Quirrell, but could only imagine what they had planned for him. He doubted it had anything to do with Unbreakable Vows, since they rarely reused material.
They were talking to a friend named Lee Jordan, the unashamedly biased commentator for the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup, who was telling them about developments in the professional circles. The three of them were smiling, laughing, even, though it appeared Jordan had to go.
"Watching us, Ronniekins?" Fred asked. "Not that I hold it against you."
"Always told ourselves we'd teach you how to have fun, we did." George explained.
"Might have been a time or two you helped the demonstration."
"But now we have something much better planned." Ron's expression changed. "You see, you've proven you want to play this game with us."
"We couldn't be happier, really. Even in these dark times, our youngest brother still wants to play with us."
"What are you suggesting?" he asked, cutting them off.
"Suppose we're no friends of the Inspections the Ministry seems keen to conduct."
"Comes off as a bit nosy to me, Fred."
"And suppose they're not exactly going to stop, especially not after there was a dark wizard here."
"Not that they found him."
Ron was aware his brothers had crossed paths with Ebony, as well as Alecto pretending to be McGonagall, whom they could discern rather reliably after they realized her punishments were lighter than those of the genuine article. She's had long enough to know we can't be disciplined, George- Right you are, dear brother. He knocked on the back of his head, hoping to jar their general speech pattern loose from wherever it was lodged.
"What are you suggesting?" he asked again.
"A little lesson in conversational strategy, Ronniekins- never repeat yourself."
"Anyway, what we're suggesting is that you take on a bit of an extracurricular assignment."
"What exactly does this entail?"
"You see, we find the Polyjuice variant the Inspectors used to be a particularly great source of inspiration."
"So we redirected our creative energies and started work on a little something of our own." Fred revealed a candy box he had been concealing.
"Purely for academic purposes, of course."
"And in that same pursuit of wisdom, we would be quite honored to have our dear brother as a guinea pig."
"I suppose we could use Scabbers, George, since rats and guinea pigs are closely related animals."
"Perhaps, George, but not as closely as rats and Weasleys." Fred responded, just in time as ever.
"I'll do it." Ron said, deciding he was safer knowing it was something they would feed a rat.
"Excellent- you'll be tailing Ebony at the Ministry- treat her just like a zoo animal."
"Look and don't touch." George clarified with a wink. None of them had been to a magical zoo. All of a sudden the weight of what he was being asked to do caught up with him- he had never really been to the Ministry, except on a few of his father's probably made-up work events that required the presence of a particular child.
"Why can't you do this?" he asked. "Don't you have a better idea of-"
"Ah, you flatter us, dear brother. And yet, we lead busy lives between the witches and the Quidditches. So be a good guinea pig and look into it."
"-if for no other reason than because it's better than the alternative."
Ron knew better than to ask what the alternative was, and he doubted that being busy was anything other than a poor excuse to goad him into investigating it, which would in turn only set them up for another joke. He wondered from time to time if the two of them planned out some of their better lines in advance. He shook his head as he walked off, having tacitly agreed to whatever it was they wanted. He was not any of his brothers, he knew that, but he was not happy with how obviously they ran circles around him with general competence.
Whatever other people said about how he should be happy with himself, he never found it to be worth anything. Especially after the previous year, he doubted anyone who might pose a threat to Ginny would care about how much older his brothers were, how carefree his boyhood could be, or how swell he thought he was. The chagrin of being compared to his brothers was not the sole factor driving his desire to improve, succeed, something, anything- but as far as I'm concerned it's pushing me in the right direction.
He went back to doing his homework, staring intently at the text on the pages of his book without reading it for an inability to concentrate. I really wish one time in ten the right motivation would just make this rubbish make sense.
Upon the signature of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, wizards went into hiding for good. It was natural, perhaps, that they formed their own small communities within a community. Many small villages and hamlets attracted several magical families, who banded together for mutual support and protection.
What confused him was that the passage went on to criticize the Malfoy family for opposing the ruling, in favor of war with the nonmagical, but then they turned around and supported it as soon as they realized they could gain power from the newly formed Ministry of Magic. He had no difficulty believing this out of them, but there remained the rather persistent question of whether or not they were able to do anything about the muggles. If the wizarding world, or noble families within it for that matter, were powerful enough to wage war on those without magic, what was the point of the Statute of Secrecy in the first place? I could have sworn I didn't just miss it somewhere a few pages ago- He remembered, of course, the whimsical explanation parents generally gave their children about not wanting muggles darkening their doors at all hours asking for magical favors, but it seemed fanciful and he had thus far found no mention of it by Bathilda Bagshot. How the bloody hell is this book organized?
He imagined that if the Malfoys posed a threat to the muggle world, massive as it was, even at the time, they would already control their government or at least enough of it not to want to abandon it all for a seat on the Wizengamot. Secondly, it seemed this decision happened all at once, but he was having trouble finding any place where the wizards had to do mass obliviations of everyone who ever knew them, which he hoped would be explained later in the book.
Tossing it aside to clear his head, he tried a few silent jinxes while no one was looking, trying to figure out how Dumbledore could just cast spells without making a sound, but decided he was making little progress in that area. What I need is someone who can actually help me.
He had fancifully considered asking Dumbledore, but he couldn't see the old wizard making time for him, kindly though he may be, Ron was a normal boy who happened to be in the wrong place a time or two. His father had made it clear to him that such was no excuse to stay out of things, but he doubted anyone would expect much of him, or even find any justifiable reason to teach him battle magic for the reason of protecting his sister, which was not at all in the scope of his duties by anyone's metric but his own. McGonagall had some sort of obligation to help him as his Head of House, but she was also Deputy Headmistress, meaning she had plenty of other duties.
Getting on a broom for the first time since getting to school felt like a weight being lifted from his shoulders, though he supposed it was really lifted from his feet. I'll fly around a tick and then I reckon I'll still have the time to at least get my History of Magic done- well, mostly done. He imagined if he asked Hermione, she would say he had no real ambition to learn, only to get stronger, and that learning was really only a means to that end. Lucky she's not around to hear me come to that conclusion. Last thing I want is her voice in my ear.
Careful to stay within the area where he had some idea the warding was, he was determined to clear his head and at least try and enjoy himself, pushing the broom as hard as he dared, allowing the scenery below him to play out in a blur of color. He felt the wind in his face as the greens and blues rushed below, racing in their mundane, familiar- a black line appeared at the edge of the wood, followed by a sudden flash of green, which forced him to climb, almost on instinct. The killing curse, unmistakable, flew below him as the caster disappeared, with him the irregularity in the scenery entirely.
"Bloody hell-" he muttered as he regained himself- his knuckles white on his borrowed broom. Turning to go back, he found his head was indeed clear of his previous thoughts; for the life of him he could not recall them. Of course, what I have instead is wondering who-
It was the Death Eaters.
It made perfect sense- their master had come back and with the Inspectors gone, they would start getting bolder with their moves on Hogwarts. All of a sudden the warding felt like more of a trap than a shield- a viewing window for the dark wizards to stare at them like a bizarre zoo exhibit. Fighting to retain control of his nerves and keep his expression from ruling his face, he put the broomstick in the appropriate closet before going up into the tower where he slept- where hopefully he would find Professor McGonagall. Whatever it was he saw, whatever it was he meant to do about it, there was no way things would be worse if she knew about it. It was getting on in the evening and sooner or later she would have to show up to send students to bed.
Finishing the history reading with nothing but the sheer determination to take even a fraction of his mind off what had just happened, he waited the rest of the time for the Transfiguration teacher to appear. When at last she did, he asked to speak with her privately and she led him to her office.
"You're as white as a ghost, Mister Weasley." she started. "I can tell this is no waste of my time." Ron had an inexplicable hope that Sir Nicholas was not listening.
"Professor, I was out flying- I saw someone in the trees- the edge of the Forest. Before I could think they sent a killing curse at me and disappeared." he stated as clearly as he could, nearly having rehearsed the whole thing. "They were Death Eaters."
McGonagall's expression had steadily darkened as he spoke, though the last comment brought her hands together, fingers interlocked.
"Mister Weasley, had you been close enough to identify your attacker or attackers as Death Eaters, you would not be here to tell me about them." She straightened. "They very well might have been former servants of Voldemort come back to do his bidding once more. All the same, that is something we do not know."
"I guess, but-"
"It is a very serious matter that your alleged attacker used a killing curse against you. What it suggests to me is that whatever he was doing was of such paramount secrecy that it was less suspicious for us to find your body than it would have been for you to return alive to tell about his presence. How do you know it was a killing curse?"
"It was green- it looked like one."
"Have you seen a killing curse before?"
"No, ma'am." he responded, thinking back to nearly every spell cast in his direction. It occurred to him that for some reason, Voldemort himself had only decided to stun him. I guess he could have just been in a good mood.
"There are other charms and enchantments with green spellfire." She paused, changing direction somewhat. "I am not doubting that whoever attacked you meant to kill you- had you fallen from your broom you would have died. I am merely trying to establish exactly what happened."
"Well, after he cast it, they were gone. I think there was more than one of them."
After a few more questions, the Deputy Headmistress determined he knew nothing more than he had already said and sent him to bed, guiding him back as far as the common room as if she feared for his safety, in Hogwarts of all places. He tried the alternate explanation that she was only accompanying him to explain his defiance of curfew, but somehow the notion refused to land.
Meeting Seamus in the dormitory, he asked if he had seen Ginny pass through the commons on her way to bed, and he confirmed it. I reckon I just might be able to sleep now. Well, I can try.
