Author's Note:
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, thanks to all those people who wished me well in finding somewhere to live (although unfortunately I'm still living in my friend's spare room, which is obviously not ideal), thanks to those people who sent me lovely emails asking nicely when Chapter 12 might be finished (except the person who sent one that consisted solely of the words "poke... poke... come on!", who can sod off), and thanks to everyone who's been patient and understood that sometimes life gets in the way of fiction. Hopefully you will all be delighted to hear that this chapter is an extra-long one!
Oh, and one last thing... you know when I said this story was a fluff-free zone? Well, this was the chapter I had in mind...
PB x
Chapter Twelve: Snow
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Hermione glanced at the clock for the umpteenth time that hour. This was ridiculous, why was she so nervous? It was only Quidditch, for heaven's sake, and it wasn't even a proper match. She should be using the time to revise for exams - they were only seven months away, after all - but she was too restless to concentrate properly, so instead she had spent the evening knitting yet more hats for the House Elves. Ron had said cuttingly that they looked more like woolly bladders than hats, which helpful remark had led to Hermione not speaking to him for an entire morning. Honestly, sometimes she wondered why she even -
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She admonished herself silently. She would not get annoyed about this again. Anyway, she was getting much better now. She could do patterns and bobbles and everything. In fact, if Ron wasn't careful, he might find a lovely bright pink knitted bobble hat in his stocking come Christmas morning. Maybe even with a matching scarf, she thought, wryly, allowing herself a small smile at the thought of how badly it would clash with his hair.
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When she was eight, Nana Granger had bought her some knitting needles for Christmas and tried to give her lessons, but she had never quite managed to get the hang of it, much to her frustration. She remembered bursting into tears and throwing the ball of wool in Nana's face, before running off to hide in her bedroom. Nana had tutted loudly and called her a spoilt little madam. In retrospect, it probably wasn't her finest hour, but then finding out there was something she wasn't good at (apart from sport, which didn't count) had been rather a shock to the system. She wasn't used to criticism, and she certainly wasn't used to failure.
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She had refused point blank to have any more lessons after that, told Nana it was "boring", although she was well aware that wasn't the real reason she didn't want to do it anymore. It had been a humiliating experience all round, especially when she had overheard Nana telling her Dad that it wasn't natural for a child to spend all her time shut up in her room with her head in a book, and that perhaps if they made her go outside and play in the fresh air with the other children more often, she wouldn't be such an "awkward, uncoordinated little girl". Nana Granger had what her mother used to refer to as an "acid tongue".
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Eight years on, with the advantage that her previous difficulties could largely be overcome with magic, she was finding knitting both oddly addictive and surprisingly relaxing. One of the things she enjoyed the most about it was that it gave her mind a well-earned break from her punishing revision schedule. Tonight, though, it wasn't helping her relax at all. She put her knitting down in her lap, sighed, and checked her watch again. Why was it taking so long? Maybe there were a lot of people trying out. She hoped not. She'd never seen Ron play before, so she had no idea if he was any good, but obviously he'd have a statistically higher chance of making Keeper if less other people were trying out too. It was so frustrating, being stuck up here and not knowing what was going on. She understood why he didn't want her there, but still...
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Ron had admitted to her that he was secretly glad Harry had got himself detention and wouldn't be able to watch the Keeper trials ("If I'm going to mess it up, the less people watching the better.") Hermione had asked him if he would rather she didn't go either, and he had readily agreed, much to her disappointment. Couldn't he have made an exception, just for her? Alright, so maybe Quidditch wasn't exactly her "thing", but friends were supposed to support friends in what they did, weren't they? Whether that happened to be playing Quidditch, or making a stand against the oppression of House Elves. She had considered sneaking down to the pitch anyway, reasoning that if she stood right at the back of the stands he wouldn't be able to see her. After all, if he failed, she just wouldn't tell him, but if he got on the team, he would be happy that she had seen his hour of triumph.
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In the end, her sense of morality kept her from going - she had made a promise and she would not break it - but the wait was agonising. She wished there was someone else here to talk to, for no other reason than to distract herself from what was going on out on the pitch, but Harry was in detention and everyone else was out watching the trials. She was almost the only person left in the Gryffindor common room, apart from a few other swots and Goths who weren't interested in Quidditch. If Ron did fail, he was going to have to do it in front of the entire House, whether he liked it or not.
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She still didn't really understand why Ron hadn't told her. He'd told Harry (although only because Harry had caught him coming back from practice with his broomstick), and Harry had let it slip to Hermione the next day, much to Ron's obvious dismay. Why hadn't he wanted her to know? Did he think she would tease him about it? Did he think she would laugh? He ought to know her better than that by now. She couldn't help but feel a little hurt that he hadn't wanted to share with her something that was obviously really important to him. Didn't she tell her friends everything? Well… maybe not everything…
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Finally, just as she was nodding off by the fire, the door burst open and a cacophony of noise announced the return of the rest of Gryffindor House. She jumped to her feet and her knitting fell to the floor, but she hardly noticed. Her heart beating rapidly, she searched the crowd for a familiar flash of bright red hair. There! No, that was George. Seamus, Lavender, Parvati, Colin… And then she saw him, talking to Fred and gesticulating wildly, laughing and smiling. Her heart performed a small somersault. Did that mean…? Oh, please let him have got on the team. Please.
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She stood by the sofa and waited for him to see her. He was still surrounded by people wanting to congratulate him. Leave him alone, she thought.
"Ron!" she called, weakly, but her voice barely carried above the chatter.
Finally, he saw her, and barrelled his way through the crowd to where she was standing. His momentum was such that for half a thrilling second she thought he was going to throw his arms around her, but at the last moment he seemed to change his mind, and instead merely gave her a swift and awkward one-armed hug, the kind boys give each other so no-one thinks they're gay.
"I did it!" he told her, "I'm Keeper!"
"That's brilliant!" she gasped, still rather breathless from the unexpected physical contact, "I knew you would!"
Ron shrugged, happily. "Well, you're the only one that did, then. I don't think Fred and George thought I had a chance in hell. Nor did I, come to think of it." He chuckled, obviously too happy to care. "Where's Harry? Is he back yet?"
She shook her head. "Still in detention."
"Ah, well. I'll tell him when he gets - yeah, thanks!" he called across the room to someone who had congratulated him, giving them the thumbs up. "What? Yeah, I know! Fred's gone to get some Butterbeers from the kitchen!"
"I wish I'd come to watch you now," she told him, trying to get his attention back to her again. "I missed your big moment."
Ron just shrugged. "It doesn't matter."
It does, she thought. "I'll come and watch your first match, then. Only if you want me to, of course," she added, hastily.
He beamed at her. "Yeah, that'd be brilliant. You can see me save my first goal! Oh, God, I still can't believe it, this is so cool! Nothing good ever happens to me, so this is just… fantastic!"
His exuberance and happiness were infectious, and she was suddenly seized with the urge to lean up and kiss him on the cheek. If she was going to do it, this was likely to be her only chance. And it was just a kiss on the cheek, after all, it didn't mean anything. She just wanted to know what his skin felt like under her lips. She'd been wondering for so long, so long, and maybe this was finally the moment.
"I mean, first prefect and now this! What next?" He nudged her and grinned. "Maybe I'll pass all my exams, what d'you reckon?"
"Maybe you will," she said, weakly. She couldn't do it while he was still looking at her. She'd have to wait until he looked away and then do it - quickly, before he had a chance to react.
He roared with laughter. "Yeah, right! I won't hold my breath! Hey, I'll have to write to Mum and Dad, they'll be really pleased!"
"They'll be really proud of you."
"Yeah," said Ron, frowning slightly, as though the idea of his parents being proud of him was a completely alien concept. "I suppose so. Although they've already had four sons on the team, so I don't suppose it'll be much of a big deal. Still," he went on, cheering up at the thought, "At least all that money they spent on a broomstick hasn't been completely wasted, eh? Hey, maybe I should thank McGonagall as well. After all, if she hadn't made me a prefect, they'd never have bought me one."
"Oh," said Hermione, realising something. "So is that why you asked them for a broomstick? Because you knew you wanted to try out for the team?"
Ron shrugged. "Yeah, well, I thought it would be worth a shot. I wasn't likely to get a chance otherwise, was I? Brooms are expensive."
Hermione frowned. So he'd known he wanted to do this for months and hadn't told a soul about it. She didn't really know what to think about that. She'd always thought of Ron as pretty much an open book, but now suddenly there was a whole new, undiscovered chapter she hadn't read yet. She stared up at him with a slight sense of awe and new-found interest. How had she not realised he was keeping secrets from them? What else was going on in there? The urge to lean up and kiss him became stronger than ever. No-one was even looking at them, and if they did see, they wouldn't think anything of it. It would just be an innocent, friendly kiss on the cheek, nothing more. Well, as far as they were concerned, anyway.
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She tried the words out for size in her head. Listen, Ron - well done. It should be so easy. All she had to do was lean up, kiss him, pretend it meant nothing, pretend her heart wasn't racing at a hundred miles an hour…
Listen, Ron - well done. Listen, Ron - well done. Listen, Ron -
"Excellent, looks like Fred's back with the drinks! I'm gonna get a Butterbeer. Do you want one?"
"Oh! Er… no, thank you. Maybe later."
"Okay, cool. See you in a bit, then."
"Yes, okay. Listen, Ron, I -"
She glanced up, and their eyes met. His pale blue eyes were shining eagerly back at her, and she wavered in the headlights of his gaze.
"Er..."
No, it was no good, she couldn't do it. Not with him looking at her like that, anyway.
"I just wanted to say..."
"Spit it out," said Ron with a grin, and she couldn't help smiling herself.
"Shut up! I just wanted to say... well done, that's all."
"Thanks!" he beamed, gratefully. He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, threw her a smile, and went over to where Seamus and Dean were waiting to clap him heartily on the back and shake his hand. Hermione watched him go, not sure whether to laugh or cry. There was an opportunity she would probably never get again.
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Ron took the bottle of Butterbeer from Seamus's hand and tried to tune in to his friends' conversation, but his head was buzzing too much to pay proper attention. He still couldn't quite believe what had just happened. He was the new Gryffindor Keeper. He was on the team. This was brilliant. This was by far the best thing that had ever happened to him, in fact.
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And even better, nobody could possibly say he'd only got on the team because he was mates with Harry, or because his brothers were Beaters. He'd saved five out of seven goals today. Five! It was more than he could possibly have hoped for, especially as before the trials he'd been so sick with nerves he'd puked up most of his dinner in a hedge behind the changing rooms. Not that he'd ever tell anyone that, of course. And there had been six other people trying out for the Keeper position, and a couple of them had even been pretty good, but not quite good enough, obviously. Ha!
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He was somebody now. Something. A Quidditch player, like Viktor Krum. Somebody Hermione might actually consider worthy of her attention. He felt as though his chest might burst with happiness. It had only taken him fifteen and a half years to find something he was good at, too. Maybe he was just a slow developer. Maybe it wouldn't matter if he didn't pass all his exams now, because he could just play Quidditch for a living instead. Maybe - he hardly dared even think it in case he jinxed it - maybe one day he might even get to play for the Cannons! Oh, wow, that would be just awesome. God, was this what Viktor Krum felt like all the time? If it was, he definitely wanted more of it. He'd quite happily listen to people telling him "well done, Ron!" and "you were great!" for the rest of his life, in fact.
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Probably the only other time he'd been the centre of attention like this was when he'd nearly got stabbed by Sirius Black in third year, and that was hardly something to be proud of. Oh, wow, something nearly happened to him! Of course, as it turned out later, he hadn't actually been in any danger at all. Fifteen and a half years on the planet and the best he could say about his achievements as a human being was that something had once nearly happened to him, but not really. Oh yeah, and he was sort of alright at chess. Woo-hoo.
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This, though, was different. This was a proper achievement, something to be really proud of, something he could look back on in years to come and say, yes, I did that. I used to be on the Quidditch team. I was Quidditch Captain, actually. No, no, he mustn't get his hopes up too much. But then, why not? Oliver Wood had been Captain and Keeper. Why shouldn't he be Captain one day? Fuck, that would be awesome. He'd be Quidditch Captain and Hermione would be Head Girl. She could ride his broomstick any time.
He choked on a laugh and accidentally inhaled half his drink up his nose, and Seamus had to give him several hard whacks between the shoulder blades before he could recover.
"You alright there, mate?" asked Dean, laughing at Ron's scarlet face.
"I'm fine," he gasped. "Just... went down the wrong way, that's all."
Oh, yeah, he was fine, alright. Better than fine. Absolutely bloody brilliant, in fact.
"Careful," said Seamus, in a tone of mock-alarm, "We can't have our new Quidditch hero choking to death before the season's even started, can we?"
They all laughed, and Ron's head swam slightly. Quidditch Hero. Now that was a title he could get used to. Ron Weasley, Quidditch Hero. Not just Fred/George/Bill/Charlie/Percy's little brother anymore. Not just That Lanky Ginger Kid who hangs around with Famous, Brave Harry Potter and Most Brilliant Witch of Her Age Hermione Granger. Somebody in his own right for the first time in his life. Yeah, he could definitely get used to this.
"Yeah," agreed Dean, slapping him heartily on the back, "We're relying on you to win it for us this year, you know!"
"Yeah, no pressure or anything," added Seamus, and they all laughed again.
Ron beamed back at them, a wonderful warm and fuzzy feeling suffusing his entire body that he didn't think had anything to do with the half a bottle of Butterbeer he'd just drunk. And spilled down himself. Shit, he thought, stifling a laugh, I really hope Hermione didn't see that. His gaze wandered automatically across the heads of the crowd, searching for that familiar head of bushy brown hair.
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Hermione looked away quickly, her cheeks burning. Had he seen her watching him? Oh, God! But she could not look away for long. It was like there was an irresistible force dragging her eyes to him. She pretended to be looking towards the door for Harry but allowed her gaze to pass briefly over Ron on the way. He was laughing about something with Seamus and Dean and no longer looking in her direction, but at least it meant she could carry on watching him without him noticing.
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He looked rather stunned, as though he still couldn't quite believe what had just happened. Stunned, but utterly elated, and so happy, it was practically radiating from within him. No, it was more than just happiness. It was pride. For the first time in the four years she'd known him he was happy because of something he'd done or achieved himself. Possibly for the first time in his whole life, she suddenly realised. Even when he'd been made prefect his moment of glory had been ruined because everyone had teased him mercilessly about it. How no-one in their right mind would have made him a prefect, how he was "the new Percy", how they'd all assumed it would be Harry who got the badge, not him. She'd done a poor job of hiding her own shock, she remembered guiltily, and the half-defensive, half-resigned look on his face had said it all.
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But then, Ron had never wanted to be a prefect in the first place. It was something that had happened to him, rather than something he'd wanted for himself. Even four months later, he still didn't seem to be able to make up his mind whether it was something to be proud of or not. But there was absolutely no doubt how he felt about this. It was written all over his face for everyone to see. He was so happy he couldn't stop smiling, and it made her smile too.
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He hurled his broomstick to the ground and stumbled blindly away from the pitch, wanting to just find a dark cave somewhere and hide from the world. Bitter tears stung his cheeks, but he made no attempt to wipe them away. Gradually the noise of the crowd died away, but he stumbled on, determined to get as far away as possible. If he could walk through the gates and keep on walking forever, he would. Never come back.
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The words of that song kept going around on a loop in his head. Hundreds of faces, the crowd as one singing, laughing and jeering at him...
"Weasley was born in a bin…"
They had won, but it had been no thanks to him. Harry had saved them. Harry had won the match. Of course he had. Harry could actually play Quidditch. How deluded had he been to think he was actually good enough to play on the team?
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Snow was falling in thick flakes now but he barely noticed. Let it snow. Let him disappear into the white void. Anything was better than going back to the castle and facing them all. Everyone would hate him. His brothers would disown him. Harry would never speak to him again. Hermione would - well, Hermione would be all sympathetic and act like it was no big deal. "It's only Quidditch," she would say.
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Only Quidditch! What did she know? Nothing! She could barely get on a broom! Could probably still do a better job than him, mind you. A blind person with crippling vertigo and no hands could probably do a better job than him.
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And he was supposed to be from a family of good Quidditch players, it was supposed to come naturally to him! Charlie had been team Captain. Charlie could have played for England, everyone said so. Fred and George were widely acknowledged as two of the best Beaters Gryffindor had ever seen, probably because they had a kind of telepathy that non-twins couldn't possibly hope to match. Even Percy would probably do a better job, and he was rubbish.
"He always lets the Quaffle in..."
To think he actually thought that getting on the team would make Hermione more interested in him! What had he expected, that he was suddenly going to become irresistible just because he could save a few goals? Except, as it turned out, he couldn't even do that. How many goals had he let in today? He'd lost count after seventeen. He was the worst Keeper in the history of the world. He was a laughing stock.
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How could he possibly go back there and face them after this? If he could DisApparate out of here right now, he would. Go and hide somewhere and grow a beard, come back in ten years when this was all forgotten. Punch Malfoy and get expelled. They ought to expel him for his atrocious goal keeping. If McGonagall could, she probably would. Angelina certainly would.
"He cannot save a single thing…"
Had he even saved one goal? What was the point of a Goalkeeper who couldn't even save a single goal? He went over and over every dropped Quaffle, every bungled save, replaying the entire match all over again in his head, reliving every torturous second.
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The storm was getting worse now, and he could only see about twenty feet in front of him on the path. His lungs were pounding and his thighs stinging from the cold and the effort of walking so fast, but he could not slow down, he had to keep moving, because the momentum was the only thing keeping him from cracking up completely.
"He cannot block a single ring…"
Half-blinded by tears and fury, he tripped and lost his footing on the rocky ground, throwing out his hands in panic to stop himself falling, and landing heavily on his hands and knees in the snow. It was the final humiliation. He let out a half-cry, half-yell of anger and misery and shame, then wrenched off his traitorous Keeper's gloves and hurled them as far away from him as he could. "Oh, fuck!" he gasped, as the icy November wind whipped through his hair and made his tears feel like razorblades against his cheeks. "Oh, fu-"
He choked on a sob and wiped his eyes furiously, but the tears kept falling.
"That's why Slytherins all sing…"
To think he actually thought this might impress her! As though he was actually going to compete for her affections with Viktor Krum, International Quidditch Player, World Cup star, idol of millions, rich, talented, popular, famous...
Useless, stupid, pathetic loser.
Sitting here on his knees in the snow, crying, like a fucking kid.
"Weasley is our King…"
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Hermione sat in silence listening to the boys loudly abusing Umbridge, Malfoy, Madame Hooch, Snape, McGonagall, everyone… rehashing the game, the argument, the fight, over and over until she tuned them out, sick of the sound of their voices. A book was open on her knee, but it was just a prop, an excuse not to have to join in their conversation. Not that they would have noticed anyway. They were too busy apportioning blame left, right and centre.
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She would have gone up to bed, but she was too anxious. She knew she wouldn't sleep until she saw him, knew he was okay. Well, maybe not okay, exactly. She highly doubted he was going to be okay. But she needed to see him nonetheless.
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Ron's was the one name they hadn't mentioned in their parade of blame. Perhaps they could not bear to have that conversation. Whether they blamed him or not, she knew Ron would blame himself.
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It angered her that they seemed to be more concerned about being banned from playing Quidditch than their friend and brother. She wanted to shout at them, "What about Ron? Don't you care? He's supposed to be your brother! He's supposed to be your friend!" Instead, she sat there going quietly frantic, looking up every time the portrait hole swung open or the clock struck the hour.
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To be frank, she thought it rather served them right. Fighting on the pitch! Punching an opposing player in front of a teacher! What did they expect? And what did it matter if they were banned from playing Quidditch for the rest of the season? It wasn't the end of the world. Besides, Harry really should be concentrating on revising for his OWLs at the end of the year. These exams were going to determine which NEWT subjects they could take next year, and thus the rest of their adult lives. They were rather more important than Quidditch. Especially, she thought privately, when it caused this much trauma.
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It had been like watching a slow motion train crash. She had wanted to look away but couldn't, and within minutes found that she had lost track of the progress of the game completely and instead kept her eyes fixed only on Ron. Every missed save, every wild dive, her hopes rising and then sinking inevitably as yet another ball zoomed past him and through the hoops. It was the most agonising match she had ever watched. To think people actually did this for fun! As soon as the whistle had blown for the end of the game she had searched frantically for Ron, but had become caught up in the departing crowd. By the time she had fought her way down to the pitch, he was nowhere in sight. She had waited outside the changing rooms for nearly half an hour in the cold before she finally gave up and came back to the common room, assuming he would eventually do the same. But that was hours ago, and there was still no sign of him.
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He'd been too upset to be properly aware of the cold, but now the adrenalin and fury had worn off, Ron realised that he was out in the grounds, it was dark and snowing hard, and that when he stood up, he couldn't see the castle at all. He had walked blindly, hardly aware of where he was going, and only knew from the rockiness of the ground that he must be a fair distance away, beyond the lake. He was still too filled with self-loathing to care. At least freezing to death would be painless. You just lay down in the snow, fell asleep, and never woke up again. That sounded pretty good to him right now.
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Mind you, knowing his rotten luck, he'd get hypothermia, hallucinate that he was really hot and shed his clothes and they'd find him naked and frozen three days later in a snowdrift. Yeah, that would just about do it. If anything could top today's match for sheer humiliation, having Hermione find his body would be it. And his cock would be all shrivelled and tiny from the cold as well. Awesome.
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Still, even that would be better than having to walk into the Gryffindor common room and see the looks of contempt on everyone's faces. Knowing that he'd let them all down. Let down the team. Let down the whole House. Let down Angelina, whose first match as Captain this was. Let down Harry, and the twins, and the rest of his family. Let down everyone. There was nothing else for it. He'd go straight back and tell Angelina he was resigning from the team. No way was he ever playing Quidditch ever again after this. Not even for fun in the back garden at home. Fun! If there was anything in the world that was less fun that what he'd just been through, he couldn't think of it. It had been the singularly most humiliating experience of his life.
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Not that his entire life lately wasn't basically one humiliation after another. He had thought nothing could be worse than that time he'd temporarily taken leave of his senses and asked Fleur Delacour out in front of half the school. Jesus, he could almost still hear the laughter ringing in his ears now. And then, only a week or so later, there'd been a new low, arriving at the Y*** B*** (he still couldn't bring himself to say the words "Yule Ball" out loud as it made him feel sick) in his hideous ancient dress robes, followed by the world's most disastrous date with some girl he'd barely even spoken to before, and who made it quite clear that she thought he'd deliberately worn the worst clothes possible just to show her up, and then gone off with the first boy who asked her to dance within about ten minutes of their arrival.
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What else? Oh, yes, the moment he had realised that not only had Hermione not been lying about having a "real" date for the ball, as he had secretly suspected, but that her date was none other than Viktor Krum, International Quidditch Star! Which, coincidentally, was the exact moment he realised that he was jealous as hell about it. His timing, as always, was lousy almost to the point of hilarity.
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And then, as if the evening hadn't been quite appalling enough, there had been the giant row with Hermione afterwards. He had at least been able to block this largely from his memory, mostly because he had been so angry he'd hardly heard what he himself was saying, let alone her equally furious replies. He may have suggested that Viktor had only asked her out so he could use her to spy on Harry. He might even have accused her of "fraternising with the enemy". Whatever he had said, it hadn't been good.
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He sighed, and leant down to rub his aching shins. His limbs were starting to stiffen up now the adrenalin had worn off, and he didn't think he'd ever felt so exhausted in his entire life. He hadn't slept a wink last night, far too nervous about his first match, his one big chance to show everyone - her - that he wasn't a complete loser after all. He hadn't been able to eat any breakfast either, his stomach churning so badly he knew that if he forced something down now, it would only come back up again later, probably in the middle of the match. Everyone kept coming up and telling him "good luck" and "you'll be great, don't worry", but none of it helped. It had felt like he was walking out there to face his doom, not about to play a bloody Quidditch match. If he could have Apparated out of there he would have. And let's face it; running away could hardly have made them hate him more.
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What on earth had made him think he could actually play Quidditch? Especially on a Cleansweep Eleven, when practically every other player on all the teams had at least a Nimbus! He shouldn't have wasted his parents' money on it. They could barely afford it, and he'd known that when he asked for one. Hadn't stopped him, though. Guilt coursed through him once more. He might as well sell it, at least get some of their money back. Let someone who could actually play Quidditch have it. He was a disgrace to the broom. What had Malfoy called it? "That mouldy old stick"? Yeah, well, that mouldy old stick was still the best his parents could afford, and what use had it been? None whatsoever. He might as well have carried on playing on the crappy school broom for all the difference it had made. Might as well have just thrown the sodding money down the drain, too. He could have the best broom in the world and it still wouldn't change the fact that he was shit at Quidditch.
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Hermione had already chewed the fingernails of one hand practically to the bone and was well on the way to destroying the other. Should she say something? Go and tell Professor McGonagall? No. A search party and yet more unwelcome attention would be the last thing Ron wanted. She would have gone to look for him herself, but she knew him well enough by now to know that he wouldn't want company. He was probably off hiding somewhere, waiting for them all to go to bed and hoping to sneak up to his room unnoticed. Well, even if it was what he wanted, he wasn't going to get it. She would sit here until dawn if she had to.
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He hadn't even turned up for dinner! The idea of Ron missing dinner was so shocking she had hardly been able to eat anything herself for worrying. Things must be really bad if he couldn't even face food. Or perhaps it was just that he couldn't face the jeers and pity and disapproval of the entire school. She had taken a slice of cake for him, wrapped it in a napkin, and put it in her bag. He'd want something to eat later, she was sure of it. He hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, after all. And actually, now that she thought about it, she wasn't at all sure he'd eaten anything then.
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She had even made Neville go and check the boys' dormitory, just in case Ron had used the opportunity to sneak back while everyone was at dinner, but his bed was empty. She hadn't really expected it to be otherwise. He'd be doing what he always did when he couldn't cope with things: go quiet, go and hide, and go over and over things in his head until they overwhelmed him. He was probably hiding in an empty classroom somewhere beating himself up about it right now, in fact. Or at least, she hoped that was where he was.
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She glanced up at the snow swirling in the darkness outside the common room window, and then automatically, for the hundredth time, at the clock. A jolt of fear went through her. He couldn't possibly still be out in the grounds after all this time, could he? Could he?
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Ron lifted his eyes to the grey sky above him. Snow was falling again. Thick, heavy snow that he knew would soon carpet the hillside. He gave an involuntary shiver. Jesus, but his hands were cold. Actually, not so much cold as completely numb. Maybe he had frostbite. Shouldn't have thrown away your bloody gloves then, should you, he thought wryly. He lifted them to his eyes and surveyed them, frowning, almost as though they belonged to someone else. Useless bloody hands. Might as well chop them off for all the good they'd been today. He'd never have to write another essay; that would be a bonus. But then, he'd never get to touch a girl's chest, either. And it would be kind of hard to get any wrist action without any wrists…
---
He dug his hands into his pockets to warm them up, and hit something small and round and hard. Pulling it out, he saw that it was a small, fluff-covered biscuit. He was often so nervous before practice that he couldn't face breakfast, so he'd stuff a couple of biscuits into his pockets, in case he felt hungry while he was out on the pitch. Practice could last for hours, especially before a big game like today's, and it was hard to concentrate when you were hungry. His stomach gave a low grumble at the thought of food and he wondered vaguely if he had missed dinner. Probably. He didn't wear a watch during matches because it was likely to get smashed by a stray Bludger if he did. It could be any time from four to - well, tomorrow.
---
Maybe if he just kept walking, into the Forbidden Forest, something would eat him. Or climbed over the gate and just kept walking full stop. He wasn't old enough to Apparate, so he'd have to get the emergency Knight bus, but where would he go? He couldn't go home, Mum would just send him straight back again. The wizarding world was a small one, and anywhere he went someone would be bound to know either him or one of his family. He didn't have any money on him either. And, he suddenly remembered with a groan, his normal clothes and - more importantly - his wand were still in his bag back in the changing room, which was almost certainly locked up for the night.
---
Maybe he could go and try and live rough in London or something. Yeah, with no money, no wand, and a shit second-hand broomstick he could probably only get a few Galleons for now, especially since it had hardly been covered in glory on its first and only public outing. And then what? Could he really survive in the Muggle world? He was fifteen (although he could probably get away with pretending to be older, one of the advantages of being tall for his age), he had no qualifications so nobody was going to give him a job, and he didn't even know basic things like how the money worked or who the Prime Minister was. Jesus, they'd think he'd escaped from the mental ward.
---
The only other option he had was to throw himself on the mercy of Bill, who would no doubt march him straight back to the Burrow, or Percy, who at least might have some sort of sympathy for Ron's situation, what with being pretty much a social outcast himself these days. Oh, or prostitution. Well, he thought, dryly, that was probably the only way he was ever going to get any action after today. Not with any of the girls at this school, anyway. He was going to be Ron Weasley, the boy who "cannot save a single thing" for the next two and a half years. Probably for the rest of his life, in fact.
---
Those Slytherin bastards and their bastard song! He might have stood a chance if it hadn't been for that, might have been able to pull himself together enough to at least save a couple of goals. Save a tiny pathetic bit of dignity. But it was just relentless, and it got louder and louder until he couldn't think straight, until it was all he could hear, the song, the jeering, the laughter…
---
It was Malfoy, he thought bitterly. He knew it was Malfoy, as sure as he knew he was never getting on another broomstick after today's humiliation. He could just imagine them all sitting around in the Slytherin common room practically pissing themselves with laughter as they thought up new lines for the song. Shit, he realised suddenly, they must have been practising. They all knew the words, every last one of them. They must have been planning this for days. Weeks, even. Fuck them. Fuck them! Bastards, the lot of them. And Malfoy was the biggest bastard of them all.
---
He had never hated anyone more than he hated Malfoy at this moment. Oh, he had hated him before - hated him solidly for the last four years, in fact. That time he had called Hermione a Mudblood. That time he said that if the monster killed somebody, he "hoped it was Granger". All the terrible things that Malfoy had ever said to him came rushing into his head. Every snide little remark and dig about his family, every time he'd wanted to smash Malfoy's teeth down his throat…
"Oh, look, Weasley, Potter's spotted some money on the ground!"
"My father says all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."
"I heard your family all live in one room – is that true?"
"Did you have to bribe someone to get on the team, or were all the good players on holiday that week?"
"You should melt down that prefect badge, Weasley; it'd probably be worth more than your entire house."
---
This, though, was different. This was a whole new level of vindictiveness. If Malfoy were here now...
---
If Malfoy were here now, if it was just the two of them alone out here in the snow, he would beat the bastard to a bloody pulp with his bare hands. At least if he got sent to Azkaban for murder he wouldn't have to walk into the Great Hall tomorrow in front of the whole school, face the boos and jeers of the Slytherins, and worse, the disappointment of his friends.
---
His fists clenched in anger and something rough-edged and hard dug into his palm. He looked down and realised he was still clutching the tiny biscuit in his hand. The evidence of his failure. He stared at it for a few moments, then snapped, hurled it to the ground and stamped on it, over and over again, until all that was left were a few tiny crumbs in the snow.
---
---
Hermione felt as though she were going quietly insane. Something was terribly wrong and there was nothing she could do about it. Running to the library would not solve this. There were no answers she could look up in a book, no spell or potion that would make this right again. She wanted to scream, hit out at someone, make them do something, but there was nothing to be done but sit and wait. She tried not to think about the worst possibilities, tried not to picture him lying at the bottom of a snowy crag with a broken leg, or lost in the blizzard, calling desperately for help.
---
No, she was being silly, he was fine, of course he was. He was just hiding, that was all. Waiting until they'd all gone to bed so he could sneak in without having to see anyone. Nothing really bad had happened. Yet the knot of fear sat heavy in her chest. How long were they supposed to wait before someone decided it was serious enough to go and get Professor McGonagall? Wasn't anyone worried apart from her? Didn't anyone care?
---
Right, she decided, if Ron didn't come back by midnight, she would borrow Harry's invisibility cloak and go and find him herself. She frowned. Midnight was such an arbitrary time. Why was midnight any worse than him still not having returned by eight, or nine, or - she checked the clock again - twenty-three minutes past nine, as it was now? It had been dark for hours, and a blizzard was blowing out there! Worse, he didn't even have a coat - or his wand, she suddenly realised, which must still be sitting in the changing rooms with the rest of his things. People could develop hypothermia if they were out in the cold too long. He might have got disorientated in the snow and wandered off into the Forbidden Forest. All sorts of creatures were lurking in there! Acromantula and centaurs and God knows what else!
---
Movement nearby caught her attention and she dragged herself back to the conversation in front of her. Fred was gesticulating angrily about something and she bristled in indignation. If Fred and George gave him a hard time over this, she would have to say something. Make them tell him it wasn't his fault. Not that he would believe them, of course. This was Ron they were talking about. The boy who had once apologised to her for having freckles.
---
She smiled to herself, remembering. They'd been in the supermarket at the time, Ron getting all stroppy and defensive about not knowing what lychees were. It was that week he'd come to stay with her in the summer holidays. That fateful week a year and a half ago when she had first thought about -
Oh.
She had kissed him. This morning, before the match. She had kissed him on the cheek and wished him luck. She'd finally done what she'd been wanting to do for a year and a half, and the ironic thing was that he probably didn't even remember it, after everything that had happened since. He'd barely seemed to know what day it was, in fact. He had looked so miserable, so lost, that she just knew it was the right moment. For once she hadn't stopped to think, to analyse, she'd just walked up to him, told him "Good luck, Ron", stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. Good luck! He'd needed more than luck today. He hadn't stood a chance against Malfoy and his nasty, evil, malicious song.
---
Oh, God, that awful song! It kept going around on a loop in her head, and she cursed Malfoy for his ability to write a catchy tune. The whole school would be humming it tomorrow. (Even if they disagreed with the sentiments, which, she hated to admit, most wouldn't after Ron's disastrous performance today.)
---
Fred was now miming exactly what he would have done to Malfoy if he'd managed to get hold of him, and Hermione gritted her teeth in anger. What use was violence? Hadn't today taught them anything? If you really wanted revenge, as Malfoy had just proved only too well, there were much more inventive and effective ways of doing it than by fighting. And as for blaming Malfoy for their Quidditch ban… He might have egged them on, but he wasn't the one who had thrown the first punch, was he? She disliked Umbridge and her poor teaching methods as much as anyone, but in this case she rather felt they had got what they deserved. Surely they must be able to see that their actions could not have gone unpunished? Alright, maybe a lifetime ban was a bit over the top, but still...
---
She sighed. Ron was going to feel even worse when he came back and discovered that Harry, Fred and George had all been banned from the team. He would no doubt blame himself for that too, although she was quite certain from what the others had told her that the fight hadn't been about Ron at all. Malfoy had said some things about Harry's mum and Mrs Weasley, and that was what had made Harry and George snap and thump him. Insulting someone's mother! It was a cheap and easy way to get a rise out of them, and Malfoy had known exactly what he was doing and which buttons to press. He had clearly only said those things to wind them up, angry that his plan hadn't worked and Gryffindor had still won the match. Not that that was much consolation to anyone now. The atmosphere in the common room was more like a funeral than a celebration.
---
If they had fought Malfoy in Ron's defence, she might be more sympathetic. She remembered being in the stands and suddenly realising what they were singing, hearing the words for the first time over the cheering and the jeering and the wind, and her blood boiling with fury. That utter bitch Pansy Parkinson, pretending to conduct the crowd like it was a game, as though it was funny to humiliate someone like that in front of the entire school!
---
If either of them had been within reach of her at that moment, if she'd been able to fight her way through the crowd to the Slytherin stand, they'd have found out just how many dark spells Hermione Granger, the girl who never broke any rules, knew and was prepared to use. Ron had stood up for her to Malfoy more times than she could remember. She would not forget this. Malfoy could win the wizarding equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize and he would still deserve everything that he got. A time would come when she had the chance to punish that little - bastard - and she would make sure she took it. Yes, Draco Malfoy would pay for this; she would make sure of it.
---
---
Ron stood on the edge of the frozen lake, his hands jammed into his pockets for warmth, wondering vaguely how thick the ice was and if it would hold his weight. He remembered the second task in the Tri-Wizard tournament, being pulled out of the water, looking around for Harry, Hermione already fussing around him with a towel, Fleur plastering him with kisses in thanks for helping to save her little sister, even though he hadn't, not really. It was all Harry, just like always. Harry was the brave, heroic one. Ron hadn't done anything apart from swallow a lot of pondweed.
---
Christ, was that really only February? It felt like a lifetime ago. So much had happened since. Cedric's death, the return of You-Know-Who, Percy leaving home, the move to Grimmauld Place, summer with Hermione, being made prefect, getting on the team… getting thrown off the team… He managed the weakest of laughs, then frowned and rubbed his forehead. Something was niggling at the back of his brain. Something about the Tri-Wizard tournament, something about Fleur…?
---
Hermione had kissed him, he suddenly remembered. This morning, at breakfast! Not a proper kiss, obviously, just a little good luck kiss before the match. She'd come up to him in the Great Hall and wished him luck and stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. A good luck kiss, like his Mum might have given him, he thought with disgust. God, he must have looked really pathetic for her to do that. She probably knew he was going to fuck it up and thought he needed all the help he could get. Not that it had made any difference, of course.
---
Well, that was it then, he thought, resignedly. That little peck on the cheek was as far as he was ever going to get now. After today - well, there was just no way, that was all. And he'd been so dazed before the match he'd barely even registered it, let alone enjoyed it. He reached up and touched his cheek wonderingly with frozen fingers. She had kissed him. He tried desperately to remember what it felt like, but it was like catching a snowflake. He couldn't even remember which cheek she'd kissed him on. Maybe he'd just imagined the whole thing. Yeah, that was probably for the best. Pretend it never happened. If only he could pretend the rest of it hadn't happened too, then everything would be fine.
---
Fine! Christ! Right now it didn't feel as though everything would ever be fine again. Every time he thought about what had happened, he felt a stabbing pain in his chest like the worst heartburn he had ever experienced. He was used to a bit of physical pain - he had five older brothers, after all - but this was different. The time he broke his leg, the time he accidentally stood on one of his mum's knitting needles and it went straight through his foot, the time the twins pushed him down the stairs… they all paled into insignificance compared to this. It felt as though there was a big clawing hole in his chest, like someone had stuck a fork in there and was just wiggling it around for a laugh.
---
He staggered sideways and retched, but there was nothing left inside of him to bring up. When the dry heaves racking his body had finally ceased, he sat down heavily on the nearest rock, his head still spinning violently.
"Fuck," he gasped, his lungs pounding and his eyes stinging. "Oh, Jesus. Oh, fuck..."
---
---
Hermione was watching the hands of the clock tick slowly round. She kept telling herself that when she got to one minute, five minutes, ten, the door would open and Ron would walk through it. But the door remained resolutely shut, and counting the seconds just seemed to make the time pass even more slowly.
---
Waiting for Ron. That was what she spent half her life doing these days, wasn't it? Waiting for him to notice she was a girl. Waiting for him to realise he liked her as more than just friends. Waiting for him to realise those feelings were more than reciprocated. Waiting for him to make some kind of a move. Ask her out. Kiss her. Anything. Even if it did end up being a complete disaster, anything was better than all this waiting, wasn't it?
---
She frowned to herself uncertainly. Would they be a complete disaster? She sighed, and rubbed her temples wearily. Pointless to worry about what was never going to happen; certainly the way things had been going lately. Prefect rounds with him were still fifty per cent the most fun she had all week, and fifty per cent - well, much like Ron himself, utterly infuriating.
---
Those were the times she thought about what Harry had said last month. He had snapped and yelled at them, told them he was sick of them always having a go at each other. She'd been, to say the least, rather shocked by this, and she could tell by the look on his face that Ron was too. She hadn't realised they were that bad. They weren't that bad. Were they?
---
They'd talked about it afterwards and come to the joint conclusion that Harry was talking rubbish. "Total bollocks" had been Ron's rather blunt opinion on the matter, and although she wouldn't have used those exact words, she was inclined to agree with him. Hermione was used to impassioned debate with her parents on the issues of the day, and Ron came from a very large, very loud family where you had to shout to be heard and bickering was practically a way of life. It was normal for them. Harry just didn't understand because he'd grown up in a house where no-one spoke to him except to order him around or tell him off. She was sorry that he'd had such a terrible, dysfunctional childhood, but it didn't give him the right to judge them for their behaviour. And just because he was going through a rough time at the moment, it didn't give him the right to take it out on his friends, either.
---
Lately, though, she'd been thinking about what he'd said and wondering if maybe Harry was right. Was it normal to get so furious with your best friend that you didn't speak for him for half a day? Or find yourself bellowing at each other at the top of your voices in the middle of a lesson, as they had last week? Partly, of course, it was because Ron had been so on edge worrying about the match, but she couldn't blame Quidditch for all of their - disagreements, no matter how much she'd like to.
---
Bloody Quidditch, she thought. Thanks to Quidditch, she was spending a lot more time on her own these days, with both Harry and Ron off at practice for whole evenings and afternoons at a time. It wasn't that she was bored - she was an only child, after all, and used to her own company - just that it was much too quiet without them there. Well, without Ron there, anyway. Harry was entirely capable of being quiet for long stretches, whereas protracted silence would just tend to make Ron feel the need to fill it, usually with an inappropriate joke. A quiet Ron, she had come to realise, was never a good sign. He was sulking, or fretting, or both.
---
This week, with his first match as Keeper rapidly approaching, Ron had become noticeably distracted and withdrawn. She kept catching him gnawing at his fingernails and staring vacantly off into space, frowning. When she'd asked him what he was doing, he'd jumped slightly, startled out of his reverie, then retorted, defensively, "What? Nothing! What? I've finished my bloody essay!" Hermione had protested, rather hurt, that she wasn't nagging, she was just worried, and Ron had massively over-reacted, snapped, "Oh, whatever!" and stormed out of the room. She had turned to Harry, who had just shrugged and muttered helpfully, "He's just nervous about the match", as though she wasn't quite aware of that fact already, thank you very much.
---
She sighed. Ron's maddening lack of confidence in his abilities was not going to be helped by what had happened today. No matter how many times they told him it wasn't his fault, she knew he would not believe them. She wouldn't be at all surprised if he came straight back and told Angelina he was resigning for the good of the team. Falling on his sword. It was a very Ron thing to do.
---
She smiled slightly to herself and shook her head. Sometimes she wanted to just grab him by the shoulders and shake him. And sometimes she just wanted to grab him and make him shut up by, ahem, other means...
---
---
Ron was still sitting on the rock by the lake, hugging his knees to his chest and staring numbly at the ground. He felt empty, hollow. He couldn't quite believe how happy he'd been just one short month ago, and now here he was, on what was indisputably the worst day of his life so far, wondering whether drowning would be more painless than freezing to death. Mind you, all that joy and optimism he'd felt at making the team had lasted, what, two days? As soon as the first match had been announced against Slytherin, he'd become the immediate object of a sustained campaign of psychological warfare. "Got your bed booked in the hospital wing, Weasley?" "Careful when you go out alone at night." "Oh, I'm sorry, did you trip over my foot?"
---
Harry, who'd had four years to get used to this, and whom the insults and threats merely rolled over like water off a duck's back, just shrugged and told Ron not to let them get to him, but it was easy for him to say. There was so much riding on him being a success at this, so much that he couldn't tell Harry about why it was so important to him.
---
He shuddered at the memory of his first proper practice with the team, when it had become horribly apparent to everyone that Ron was not going to suddenly bowl them all over with his fantastic Goalkeeping skills, and that his saving of five goals in the trials had clearly been a fluke. The look on Harry's face afterwards had said it all: "Shit, how do I tell Ron he's rubbish at this?"
---
He should have given up there and then. They'd all suspected it, of course, but at least he could have quit before he could actually prove to everyone how useless he was. Why had he even bothered trying? Of course he was going to be shit! He was still him. The same idiot he'd always been, only in a pair of Goalkeeping gloves.
---
A pair of gloves he'd just thrown away in a fit of pique. Even if he could remember where he'd left them, he'd never be able to find them now under all this snow. They were school gloves too, so he'd probably have to pay for a replacement pair. Or rather, his parents would. More of their hard-earned money wasted. He was a disgrace to his family. Percy couldn't play Quidditch either, but at least he was smart. And he might be a massive git, but at least he had a decent job that paid good money, which was more than Ron was ever going to manage. Seven months until their final exams and he just knew he was going to fail them all. Of course he was. He failed at everything he ever did, why the hell should this be any different?
---
He'd been kidding himself all along, he saw that now. No-one was ever going to be impressed by this. For God's sake, Charlie was team Captain. Charlie could have played for England. Unless you actually get to play for England, unless you actually win the World Cup, you still lose. And Charlie didn't even care! He could have played for England and he threw it all away to go and work with sodding dragons, that's how little Charlie cared about it. How could Ron ever win against that?
---
No, nothing he did was ever going to impress anyone, because someone else in his family would always have done it first, or better. He could win the Quidditch Cup tomorrow and Charlie would still have won it three times, and he was Captain. He could get nine Outstanding OWLs and Bill and Percy would always have got more than him, and they were both Head Boy, too. He was only the fourth person in his family to get made a prefect. The fifth person to make the Quidditch team. Nothing he did was ever going to be good enough. He'd have to practically become Minister of Magic before anyone would even notice or care. Certainly before Hermione noticed him, anyway.
---
He had thought, when he been made prefect, that this might finally be something that would impress her, but he'd obviously been kidding himself about that too. The look on her face had said it all, really. "Oh, Harry, how wonderful, I knew it would be you!" Of course she did. Of course she knew it would be Harry. Wasn't it always? And then the look of stunned disbelief on both their faces when Harry told her, no, it wasn't him after all; Ron was the one who'd been made prefect. Harry looking rather shell-shocked, as though he'd been promised something and had it taken away from him. Yeah, well, he was right, wasn't he? It should have been Harry. And then her feeble, embarrassing attempt to cover her shock: "Oh. Um... well, that's great, Ron. No, it's not surprising at all. Ron's done loads of things, he…"
And then she'd tailed off, apparently unable to come up with even a single reason why Ron should have been made prefect. That's how much she thought of him. Or rather, how little.
---
And the worst thing was, she was right. They were all right, Fred and George and Harry and Hermione and Ginny and Seamus and Malfoy, all those people who said he'd make the world's worst prefect. It should have been Harry, not him. He'd been given an opportunity and all he'd done was prove to absolutely everyone just why they shouldn't have bothered, because he'd only let them down, only fail, just like he did at everything. Even Hermione reckoned that Neville would have made a better prefect than Ron had.
---
Despite all that, though, he was a prefect. And even if he didn't appreciate the badge quite as much as he probably should, at least it was one step towards being the kind of bloke Hermione might actually consider going out with.
---
Going out with. Shit. Was that why he was doing all this? It suddenly hit him that he didn't just fancy Hermione. It wasn't just that he wanted to know what she looked like under her robes, although that would be a pretty good place to start. No, he wanted more than that. A lot more. Everything. She was awesome and brilliant and lovely, and now he could see that she'd always been awesome and brilliant and lovely. He'd just been too thick to realise it; that was all. And now it was too late.
---
He groaned out loud at the thought, and remembered seeing her walking into the Great Hall on Krum's arm. She'd been almost glowing that night. Beaming happily at everyone, but mostly at Viktor, as though she couldn't quite believe her luck. Stupid, really, because it was patently obvious that Krum was the lucky one. And obviously much smarter than he looked, too, because he had seen something in Hermione that Ron hadn't. Well, not until it was far too late, of course. Not until the exact moment when she'd walked through the doors of the Great Hall, in fact. And how had he dealt with this amazing revelation? By starting a huge row with her that had left her in tears and ruined the evening for just about everyone. Nice.
---
But then, fucking things up was what he did, wasn't it? He'd managed to get on the team and had promptly proved himself to be the worst Keeper Gryffindor had ever had. If it hadn't been for Harry saving the Snitch like that they would have lost by an embarrassingly huge margin, and it would have been all his fault. Christ, they could hardly have done worse if he hadn't been there at all, or played with his arms tied behind his back. In fact, if they'd played with six players instead of seven, they'd probably have had a better chance of winning.
---
Yeah, he was 7 out of 7, just like at home. The one with nothing to offer, the one no-one would miss if he wasn't there. Mr Invisible, plodding along in the background, on the sidelines of the action, never doing anything of any worth, never achieving anything, never impressing or surprising. He should never even have tried. If the history of his whole life so far had taught him anything, it ought to have taught him not to hope for glory, because he'd never achieve it. There just wasn't enough limelight to go around, and most of it was shining on his two best friends. Would anyone even notice if he didn't go back? What was he for? What was the point?
---
Still, if today had proved anything, it was that being invisible was better than being a public object of ridicule. Well, he'd learned his lesson. He wasn't special, he wasn't even average, in fact, and there was no point pretending otherwise. The best he could hope for now was that he'd scrape enough OWLs to enable him to not get kicked out of school or have to retake a year - Jesus, imagine being put back a year and ending up in the same classes as his little sister! Better to just leave now and put up with the inevitable parental inquisition than suffer that humiliation.
---
Of course, his parents would be furious if he got kicked out of school, but it wasn't his fault if he wasn't academic, was it? They had too high expectations, that was all. He knew there was no chance of him doing more than scraping a pass in a handful of subjects, they seemed to be under the mistaken impression that all he had to do was work really hard and he would pass them all with flying colours, like Bill and Percy. Well, he wasn't Bill or Percy. He wasn't any of his brothers, and the sooner they realised that and accepted that there was no point expecting top grades from him, the happier everyone would be.
---
It might even turn out to be a good thing. People had left school at sixteen before. There were always jobs out there, even without any NEWTs. The Ministry always needed cleaners. School was obviously just a waste of time, his and everyone else's, trying to teach him. He'd miss Harry and Hermione of course, but he could still see them in the holidays. They'd probably forget him soon enough, anyway. Maybe if he got a job he could find a place of his own somewhere, like Bill and Percy had. In the real world, nobody gave a shit if you were rubbish at Quidditch and only had a couple of OWLs.
---
He buried his head in his hands and let out a muffled yell of frustration. The real world seemed very far away right now, and so did their exams. He wasn't even sixteen for another three and a bit months, which felt like forever. The end of term and their exams were another three months after that. Seven whole months before he could leave.
---
Yeah, except he wasn't going to leave at sixteen, was he? His mum would never let him, for a start. Jesus, seven months was nothing. He had another two and a half years of this. Two and a half years he was going to have to put up with hearing that song every day. Two and a half years of sitting next to Hermione in lessons and knowing that he could never have her.
---
"Hermione..." he murmured aloud. He wondered what she was doing now, if she'd even noticed he wasn't there. Probably in the library, writing an essay that wasn't due in for another three months or something. He smiled to himself at the thought. Mental, that one. Drove him half-mental most of the time, too. Sometimes doing prefect rounds with her made him want to bang his head against the wall in sheer frustration.
---
And yet... alright, so no-one else managed to wind him up quite as successfully as Hermione did, but no-one else could make him feel a hundred different emotions at once like she did, either. He'd never have imagined it was possible to feel irritation and lust at the same time, for example, but apparently it was. Apparently it was entirely possible to think, "Oh, for the love of Merlin, woman, give it a rest!" at the exact same time as, "God, her tits are fantastic!" Or maybe that was just him. Maybe he was just weird.
---
Sometimes, when she was off on one of her long rants about the House Elves, or how did he expect to pass his exams without a proper revision plan, or how being a prefect was an honour, blah blah blah, he'd tune her out completely and just stare at her instead, nodding occasionally so she didn't realise he'd stopped listening.
---
That was something else he didn't think he'd ever get bored of - watching Hermione. Even when she was just quietly reading she was endlessly fascinating to watch. Especially when she was reading. It was oddly sexy, actually. The curtain of curly brown hair that made him want to reach across and push it back off her face so he could get a proper view. The occasional tantalising glimpse down her blouse when she leaned forward. The way that she chewed her lip sometimes when she was concentrating and it made him wonder what it might be like to kiss her. The inky fingers that made him want to grab her by the wrist and pull them into his mouth and suck them clean. The brown eyes that only had to flash angrily in his direction to send a lightning bolt of desire through him. All the things she did without even knowing it that had the unfortunate result of making it impossible for him to get up from the table for several minutes. Jesus, was it any wonder he could never get his homework finished on time?
---
Sometimes he would stare at her sitting across from him, that face he knew almost as well as his own, and think that she doesn't even realise how pretty she is, and that maybe someone should tell her, and maybe that person should be him. But now, after today, he'll never know what it feels like to kiss her, or do any of those things, and he'll never be able to tell her how he feels about her.
---
Anger and self-loathing surged through him once more. Why in the name of Merlin had he ever thought this would impress her? She'd gone to the ball with Viktor Krum! Viktor Krum! So obviously, after dating an International Quidditch player, she was definitely going to be impressed by him playing Keeper for the school team, wasn't she? Especially when he'd failed to save a single goal. Why the fuck would a girl like Hermione, who got top marks in everything, who was pretty damn near perfect, in fact, ever be interested in him?
---
Oh, yeah, they'd make a great pair, alright. The smartest girl in school and the biggest loser. A girl who this time last year had turned up to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum on her arm, and an idiot who had turned up wearing what looked like a pair of mouldy curtains. A whole year ago. A whole year since he had realised that maybe he wanted to be more than just friends with her. A whole year he'd spent trying to think of new ways to impress her, trying to turn himself into a person she might actually be interested in. What a fucking waste of time. Give it up, Weasley, he told himself. She's never going to look at you with anything other than pity after today. Ha. Like she ever was!
---
Tears pricked the backs of his eyes again, and he wiped them away furiously with his sleeve. The Hermione thing… it was a stupid crush, that was all, and he was just going to have to live with it, because hell would freeze over before she ever looked at him in that way. He'd wasted a whole year on this pathetic hope and it was about time he accepted that it was Never Going To Happen. He was a rubbish prefect, and a worse Quidditch player, and if he asked her out now, she'd laugh him out of the castle. You stupid fucking loser, he told himself, bitterly. She doesn't fancy you and is never going to fancy you, and even if you won the Daily Prophet Grand Prize and spent the lot on building her a giant library, she still wouldn't look twice in your direction. No girl is ever going to, not after today. You're a laughing stock. A joke. A total waste of space.
---
Ron Weasley, Quidditch hero! Who was he kidding? Yeah, really heroic, running away and hiding like he used to do when he was little and the twins had upset him. Then he would hide in the broom shed - he didn't miss the irony - or in the long grass in the field behind the house. Eventually Bill or Charlie or his dad would come out and find him and dry his tears, and give him chocolate and make him laugh, and things would be alright again. Christ, he was pathetic. Nearly sixteen years old and hiding out here in the snow feeling sorry for himself and hoping one of his big brothers would come along and make everything alright. Well, things weren't going to be alright. They were never going to be alright again. Nobody was going to come along and wave a wand and make this better. Nobody was out here looking for him, wondering where he was. No, it was up to him and him alone now.
---
He hauled himself upright, dusted the snow off himself, and started trudging as slowly as he could back towards the castle, his feet slipping and sliding through the snow. There was no way out, no alternative, no choice. He was just going to have to go back there and face them. Every single sodding day for the next two and a half sodding years until he could finally leave. Unless, of course, he actually did murder Malfoy and get expelled. He managed the weakest of laughs at this thought. Yeah, if he was going, he was bloody well taking Malfoy with him.
---
---
"…appeal to Dumbledore? I mean, Umbridge isn't even the Headmistress, is she? She hasn't got the authority to ban us from playing Quidditch!"
Hermione awoke with a start from a daydream in which she had found Ron sitting alone in an empty classroom, closed the door firmly behind her, and told him she'd come to kiss it better. She glared at George, annoyed. Things had just been getting interesting, too.
"That's right!" exclaimed Fred, hotly. "She's not even a real teacher, she's just a Ministry stooge!"
She groaned inwardly. Were they still arguing about this?
"You'd think the Ministry would have better things to do than interfering in a school sports team!"
"Yes, exactly!" thought Hermione, furiously. "The wizarding world is in upheaval! There's probably going to be a war! Nobody cares about Quidditch! I certainly don't, so why don't you all just shut up about it!"
---
Except that Ron, of course, cared about Quidditch very much, and since she cared about him… and Harry, of course, although right now his whining and refusal to accept any blame for what had happened was irritating her so much she would happily have punched him. Whether she liked it or not, Quidditch was probably going to remain a large part of their lives, and therefore, by extension, hers too. Even if, as looked increasingly likely, Ron was thrown off the team, there was still the Cannons to occupy the thirty per cent of his brain that should probably be devoted to more useful pursuits, like, ooh, doing his homework on time, or organising a proper revision timetable.
---
She frowned. Last week, with the first match rapidly approaching, and Angelina insisting on long practice sessions nearly every night, Ron had received only 27% in a Charms essay that she knew he'd stayed up half the night to write and was still writing, red-eyed with exhaustion, at breakfast, ten minutes before it was due in. He'd put a brave face on it afterwards, joking that it was a good thing it wasn't Potions or Snape would have taken great pleasure in announcing his low mark in front of the whole class, but she could tell he was rather shaken. 27% meant a straight fail.
----
Really, Ron should not have taken on any more extra-curricular activities in OWL year in the first place. Their revision workload alone was heavy enough, but he also had to deal with their increasingly onerous prefect duties, the DA, and now Quidditch practice several times a week as well. Now that she thought about it she realised his workload was even heavier than hers or Harry's. No wonder he was getting behind with his schoolwork!
---
Guilt coursed through her. Maybe she was a little hard on him sometimes, but only because she cared. She didn't want him to fail his exams and get kicked out of school any more than he did. Still, she thought, sadly, after today he wouldn't have to worry about Quidditch distracting him from his studies anymore. Not that that was going to be much consolation. She was sure if he had the choice he would have preferred to drop prefect duties instead, but thanks to Malfoy, that decision had been taken out of his hands. After all, he'd never really wanted to be a prefect - he probably wouldn't be that bothered if they made him give the badge back, in fact - but making Keeper obviously really meant something to him.
---
Well, of course it did! He'd watched his brothers go off to school and play Quidditch for Gryffindor for years, watched Charlie lift the House Cup, and seen all the adulation and glory that came with Quidditch success. He'd probably wanted this since he was eight years old. Half his life, in fact. Whereas Harry had barely got on his first broom before Professor McGonagall was telling him he was a fine natural flyer and making him the youngest Seeker this century. He was pleased, of course, but it couldn't possibly have meant as much to him as it would have done to Ron. For goodness' sake, he'd never even heard of Quidditch until he'd met Ron on the train a few weeks before. It was Ron's dream and Harry had just been handed it on a silver platter without ever even really wanting it in the first place. And then he was just given a brand new top-of-the-range professional-standard broomstick which made him the envy of the entire school. It had all come so easy to him.
---
She glanced across at her other best friend. Harry was still complaining bitterly about how unfair it was that he'd been banned, as though he bore no responsibility whatsoever for what had happened, and Hermione suddenly felt the strong desire to scream at him to just shut up. It was always about Harry, wasn't it? Even this, the hour of Ron's greatest humiliation, had somehow become about Harry instead. Harry had punched the rival team's Seeker and got himself and both his team's Beaters banned from playing Quidditch for life, and now that was all anyone was talking about. Ron wasn't even allowed to have any of the attention for the wrong reasons.
---
And it wasn't just Harry, was it? Hermione got told she was brilliant by a teacher at least once a week. She was top of the class in every single one of her classes, week in, week out. Maybe Ron just wanted a tiny fraction of the limelight to shine on him for a change. Well, he'd got it all right, but not in the way he'd imagined.
---
Fred and George were arguing again and she gritted her teeth and looked away from them, towards the window and the black sky beyond. Snow had started to fall again, and her anger melted away in an instant. Oh, God, Ron…
---
---
He came to an abrupt halt, a stab of terror piercing his chest, and for a few moments he almost stopped breathing. Shit. What was that? Something he couldn't quite make out was blocking the path thirty yards ahead of him, something with black spidery legs sticking up out of the snow…
---
He stood perfectly still for almost a whole minute before a momentary lull in the blizzard revealed the glint of the Quidditch hoops above him, and he realised with a snort of mirthless laughter that the black spidery thing was his broomstick, which was still lying, now half-covered by snow, at the foot of the hoops where he had left it hours earlier. Standing there at the side of the empty pitch everything suddenly came flooding back to him; the roar of the crowd, the jeering, that bloody song, the feeling of being trapped in the middle of some dreadful nightmare he couldn't wake up from. He wrenched his broomstick from the snowdrift and beat it savagely against the ground until some of the anger he felt subsided, then threw it aside in disgust. Breaking the bloody thing wasn't going to help.
---
Funny how quickly the shine could wear off. He remembered the joy and awe he'd felt when he'd first unwrapped it, the incredible feeling of having something new, something that was just his, and hadn't been battered about for several years by one of his brothers first. All that hope and expectation invested in a bundle of old twigs and wood. Looking at it now he didn't feel any of that joy, he just felt... flat. Defeated. It turned out that just owning something shiny and new wasn't enough, you needed to be worthy of it, too, and he wasn't. You could give a quill to a monkey and it didn't mean he'd know how to write his name.
---
He kicked at the ground in frustration. All those years he'd dreamed of maybe one day flying out onto the pitch in the distinctive orange robes of the Chudley Cannons. Every kid he knew wanted to be a Quidditch player when he grew up, it was just a given if you came from a wizarding family. Well, apart from the weird ones like Percy, who wanted to be Minister of Magic. No-one ever dreamt of working in an office. Or sweeping the pitch, which was probably about as close as he was ever going to come to playing for the Cannons after today.
---
It was a stupid, childish dream, anyway, he thought, bitterly. About as likely to come true as when he was three and decided that, when he grew up, he wanted to be a hamster. His family still liked to remind him of that from time to time, usually with an annoying ruffle of his hair and an even more annoying, "Aw, did you want to be a hamster, ickle Ronniekins?" Then they'd all fall about laughing while Ron glared at them. The curse of having five older brothers; everyone remembered everything you ever did, even - especially - when you'd really rather forget.
---
Yeah, well, nobody was going to forget this one in a hurry, that was for sure. He certainly wasn't. That was another reason to just get rid of the bloody broomstick; every time he looked at it, he was going to be reminded of the worst day of his entire life, and how badly he'd messed things up. For a moment he was tempted to just leave the hated thing there to be swallowed up by the snow, but the gnawing guilt of wasting his parents' money made him reach down and pick it up again. He let out a long sigh, then started trudging slowly and with a heavy heart back towards the castle, dragging his broomstick roughly behind him.
---
---
Okay, she told herself, if he's not back by eleven, I'll go to McGonagall. It'll be nearly twelve hours by then, and nobody can possibly think I'm overreacting after twelve hours. And at least I'll be doing something and not just sitting here going half-mad with worry. And I don't even care if he hates me for getting the teachers involved and never speaks to me again, just as long as he's alright. And I'll never tell him off for not taking his prefect duties seriously ever again, and I won't let myself get annoyed over all the stupid little things he says and does. And if I do get annoyed, I'll just remind myself of this; sitting here for hours and hours and going out of my mind, just because he's too busy feeling sorry for himself to bother letting me know he's alright. And I won't give him a good hard slap around the face the moment he walks through that door, because, actually, that's what he deserves for putting me through all of this agony. Us, I mean. He must know we're sitting here wondering where he is and worrying ourselves silly. Doesn't he care? It's just selfish, that's what it is! Taking it out on us because of something Malfoy did! It wasn't us who made up that awful song, was it? We're on his side. We're his friends. He shouldn't need to hide from us. He can't possibly think we'd blame him for what happened, surely. Why does he think he has to go through this on his own? Why are boys all so emotionally sodding retarded? Girls would talk to each other about something like this! They'd cry on each other's shoulders and hug each other and make everything seem alright again. That's what friends are for, isn't it? That's what - that's - he - why -
Oh, God. Where the hell is he?
---
---
If only there was some sort of secret tunnel up to the dorm so he could sneak in unseen, crawl into bed, pull the covers over his head and hide from the world until morning. He didn't want to see anyone, especially his brothers, especially Angelina, especially Harry. Especially her. He would have given almost anything for them to have given up and gone to bed, but he knew it was too much to hope for. His two best friends would both be sitting up waiting for him, whether he wanted them to or not. He could almost picture the looks on their faces, the sympathy he didn't want and certainly didn't deserve. That was almost the worst thing of all. The awful pitying look he knew she would give him, the whole speech he could almost recite off by heart. "It doesn't matter, it's only Quidditch, it's not important, you'll do better next time, don't let them beat you."
---
Yeah, well, it did matter, actually, and it wasn't "only" Quidditch, it was everything else as well. Quidditch was just one more thing he couldn't do, one more thing he'd failed at. And he wouldn't do better next time either. Hadn't she learned anything in five years? Didn't she know him at all? He wasn't suddenly going to pass all his exams or be a fantastic prefect or win the cup. He wasn't going to surprise everyone with some amazing and previously undiscovered talent, because he didn't have any.
---
And as for not letting Malfoy beat him… Christ, it wasn't about Malfoy, couldn't she see that? No-one was to blame for what had happened today but himself. He had deluded himself into thinking he could play Quidditch, and he had been proved spectacularly wrong. Well, he wouldn't make that mistake again. First thing tomorrow he would find Angelina and resign from the team. That's if she didn't sack him first, of course. Either way he was never getting on a broomstick again.
---
Please, he begged silently, as the grey mass of the castle loomed into view through the blizzard. Let the door be locked. Let the common room be empty. Let everyone have gone to bed. Oh please God, let there be no-one there waiting for me. Let it be yesterday again. Let everyone in the entire world have fallen under a memory spell. Let today never have happened. Let the Astronomy Tower fall on me. Let me wander into the path of the Whomping Willow. Let her not look at me with that awful pitying expression on her face.
---
He came to a halt a hundred yards from the castle, and shot an apprehensive glance up at Gryffindor tower. His heart sank. There was a light still shining at the common room window, so it obviously wasn't as late as he had hoped. Either that or they were all waiting up for him so they could tell him he was sacked to his face.
---
He closed his eyes for a few moments and took several long, deep breaths to steel his nerves. His stomach was churning with dread and his legs felt like jelly, but he knew he could put it off no longer.
Alright, he told himself, with a resigned shrug. Might as well get this over with.
---
---
Hermione, who had long since abandoned any pretence of actually reading her text book, was trying to outstare the treacherous clock. Even Fred and George seemed to have tired of arguing now, and the atmosphere around the fire was one of despair rather than anger. Nobody had spoken for several minutes, and although earlier she had been praying they would all just shut up, now that they had the sudden silence was even harder to bear. The only sounds in the common room were the wind whistling down the chimney, the crackling of the fire, and the slow tick tick ticking of the clock. It seemed to almost mock her impatience, and she was seized with the desire to throw something at it and make it stop.
---
She checked her watch, then the clock, then her watch again, just to be sure. Twenty-three minutes past ten. Ron had thirty-seven minutes before her arbitrary deadline was reached and she reported him missing to Professor McGonagall. She fervently hoped it would not come to that, not least because once he was officially missing, she would no longer be able to pretend to herself that he was alright. Besides, he would not thank her for getting the teachers involved, especially if he really was perfectly safe, just sitting in a nice, dry classroom waiting for them all to go to bed.
---
She frowned. Maybe she should just go and look for him. Except the castle was full of little nooks and crannies and secret rooms where someone who didn't want to be found could hide. He could be almost anywhere. Don't be defeatist, she told herself, sternly. Who knows him better than you? Who has a better chance of finding him than you do? Think, Hermione, think!
---
The kitchens? Possibly, but more than likely he'd want to be on his own, not pestered by House Elves with endless offers of tea. Moaning Myrtle's toilet? Again, not likely. A depressed ghost was hardly the best company at a time like this. Oh! What about the prefects' bathroom? A hot flush crept up her cheeks at the thought of bursting in to find Ron in the bath, all wet and pink and wet and – that really isn't helping, Hermione! Anyway, she was sure she remembered him saying he didn't use the prefects' bathroom, although she couldn't quite remember why. But if not there, then where…?
---
The answer came to her in a flash. Of course! The Room of Requirement! How could she have forgotten? A jolt of excitement tinged with fear coursed through her, but a moment later she knew it was impossible. Even if he was in there, she wouldn't be able to get inside without knowing what he'd asked the room to be. He might have asked it to be a place to hide from them all, and then what was she going to do? Wait all night outside a room where he might or might not be hiding, just on the off chance? Better to stay here, where at least she knew that if she waited long enough, he'd have to walk past her eventually.
---
Okay, she decided, if he's not back by eleven, I'll search all the places he might be myself, and if I still can't find him, then I'll go and tell McGonagall. She glanced at the clock again, although it was more out of habit than hope. Ten thirty-one. Only twenty-nine more minutes to wait. Only! It might as well be twenty-nine hours!
---
She wondered what she would say to him when he finally did turn up. Platitudes wouldn't help, and nor would demanding to know where the hell he'd been all day. To be frank, it was probably going to take all the restraint she possessed not to just run across the room and throw her arms around him out of sheer relief. Mind you, that might be something of a giveaway. Ron and Harry would be oblivious to any undertones – for goodness sake, Harry hardly even seemed to be aware of the moon eyes Cho Chang kept making at him across the dining room – but she had a curious feeling the twins knew rather more than they let on. They'd known Ron his entire life, after all, and if Ginny knew, then there must be quite a high chance that Fred and George did too. Some of the little jokes and remarks they'd made to or about her and Ron while they were all living at Grimmauld Place over the summer had been a little too close to the truth for her liking.
---
To her immense relief, however, the twins sloped off to bed a little while later, and Harry and Hermione were left alone in the common room at last. She glanced automatically at the clock. Ten to eleven. She could not wait any longer. Harry cleared his throat and gave her a guilty little smile, as though he could read her mind and sensed her disapproval.
"Have you seen Ron?" she demanded, her voice sounding croaky and strange. She realised with shock that it was the first time she'd spoken in hours.
Harry shook his head mutely.
"I think he's avoiding us," she sighed. "Where do you think he -"
Just at that moment, the door to the portrait hole swung open and Ron climbed through, still in his Quidditch things and clutching his broom. He was even paler than usual, and there was snow in his hair.
He stopped dead when he saw them, and immediately glanced towards the stairs to the dormitory as though wondering if he could make a quick getaway.
Hermione's heart gave a lurch, and she jumped shakily to her feet.
"Where you have been?" she wailed.
Ron kept his eyes lowered, unable to look either of them in the face. He gave a hopeless little shrug.
"Walking."
---
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Author's Note:
And breathe…
I can't believe I've never read another fic that covers this scene, as to me it was one of the most emotional and affecting in the whole series of books. I really think it's absolutely pivotal to what happens afterwards as well, why Ron doesn't make any kind of move for the rest of fifth year, and the underlying reason why the whole Hermione-thinks-I-had-to-take-lucky-potion-to-win-anything-well-sod-her-I'm-going-to-snog-Lavender-instead debacle gets so horribly out of hand. Just think how differently the next couple of years might have gone if Ron had only won this match...
Please leave a review if you can because, as I said before, this is my favourite chapter and I'd love to know what you all thought of it. Thanks!
PB x
