Chapter 13: Pendulums

Arthur feels sick standing here, in front of this door. He can hear a mug clink down onto a desk and the sound of a quill moving across papers. No doubt pristine white instead of the standard creme colored the Ministry favored. 'The marks show up better when I'm correcting work,' his boy was fond of telling him. He always had the urge to talk about how muggle's liked their paper perfectly white as well, but he knew this son hated to talk about his work with muggles.

He does not want to have this conversation.

He does not want to be here at all. Especially with the recent string of articles coming out with Percy's name labeled within them in support.

But Percy didn't know.

He'd written Charlie and Bill and told both his boys in no uncertain terms that they needed to get a full examination and there was no debate on this. Full- from head to toes. Including sexually transmitted diseases. He didn't like to think about the idea that any other child had been hurt in that way, but he had to be sure.

Tightening his resolve, Arthur opened the door.

"If it's another message from Winston, tell him I don't have time to look over his proposal today," Percy said without looking up from his desk.

"I'm afraid not."

Percy's head shot up and Arthur winced at the sound of a breaking quill.

"Get out."

"Something terrible has happened," Arthur said quickly. "I just…" he swallowed hard, "I'll be out of your hair in a moment. I just need to talk to you."

"I don't want anything more to do with your lies!" Percy snapped, standing up from his desk, looking as if he wanted to bodily throw Arthur out of the room.

"Ron's been hurt!" Arthur snapped.

Percy's mouth shut with a snap. He paled as his stride turned into a stumble and when he looked at Arthur it was with a vulnerability he hadn't seen in a long time. Arthur mentally cursed himself. He hadn't meant to go into any specifics. He hadn't even meant to name Ron at all.

What was that muggle saying? In for a drop of water in for an ocean? No, no. It was something like that. Arthur cleared his throat. There was something thick there, something lodged deep in his esophagus that would not leave him be.

"Ron was…" he stopped himself. Trying to word things as carefully as possible.

"What?!"

Blast it all.

"Someone hurt Ron in a… in a terrible way and now he is very sick."

"Why are you being vague?" Percy snapped. "This is Ron! What… was he involved in something with Potter and now he's hurt? Are you covering for that… that…"

Percy spoke as if he could not quite find a word deplorable enough for Harry and Arthur had to bite his tongue as his insides turned to stone.

"This has nothing to do with Harry," he said softly. "What happened to Ron happened a while ago."

Suddenly Percy gave him the side eye, a sneer spreading across his face.

"Oh? Godric's dirty garments, why have you come here? Just to… to mess around with my head? To say something like…"

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose as Percy stomped back towards his desk. There was no way to say this without saying the truth… was there?

'Forgive me, Ron.'

"Ron was raped."

Percy stopped with his back to Arthur.

"It…" his words came out choked. Like ash. "It happened when he was younger and he… he didn't say anything, but… he's very sick, Perce. He has a sexually transmitted disease. I came here today to… if you were ever hurt like that… I just want to make sure you knew to get checked out. Okay?"

His voice is thick as he talks and he feels tears sliding down his face, but he doesn't wipe them away. He won't be able to finish this talk if he does.

"Please, Percy, I'm just asking you to get checked out. And to keep silent. Ron doesn't want anyone to know. He wants to tell family members on his own and in his own time, but… with the way, things have been… I…"

Percy still had not turned around. His fist was clenched and his body rigged.

"Who?"

Arthur straightened at the furious whisper. When Percy turned to him, there was a cold fury there the likes of which he'd never seen before. Not even when Percy had sworn to never speak to him again. Arthur bit his lip, more than aware of how the answer would affect his boy.

"Peter Pettigrew."

Percy's eyes widened.

"The rat I gave to Ron? The… the death eater… I gave to Ron?"

Like a pendulum swing, the cold fury swung to devastation and back again. He watched the deadly cycle of anger and pain for only a moment before he was there, steadying his son by his shoulders.

"That was not your fault," Arthur told him, shook him. "Not your fault."

"But I…" haunted eyes came up to look at Arthur. "Charlie found the rat in the garden… but it was me! I was the one that begged mum to keep him! I…"

His son gagged and Arthur only had a second to summon the garbage can over to them before vomit spewed in it and around it.

"It was small and sickly and I tended to it! I took care of him! I… No. No… you're lying!" Percy didn't believe that though. He could feel it in the desperate hold his boy had on his own shoulders now. The way those blue eyes searched his own. "Please, please, please, tell me you're lying."

"I'm sorry," Arthur said, pained. "I'm so sorry."

He pulled his son into his arms much like he had Ron not so long ago.

"Ron promised…"

Arthur paused at his son's words. He pulled away just enough to see Percy staring off into space.

"Ron promised nothing happened. He promised me!"

The pit inside of him widened.

"I think Ron would have taken what happened to his grave if he hadn't gotten sick," Arthur said quietly. "As it stands, he doesn't want to talk about it at all. Pomfrey and I are the only ones who know right now…" [And Sirius Black, but like hell was he going to tell Percy that.] "We've got the other kids checked out. All fine. Bill and Charlie agreed to go get checked out without me having to explain anything. So… it's just you, me, and Pomfrey for now. Even so, Ron wouldn't tell me anything specific. He shut down and locked me out. I'm not sure…"

"Why don't you start with having some personal time with him," Percy said slowly, the bitter note that had been there for so long returning. "Before you try to break his rib cage open and rip the answers out, try to just… spend time with him. With just him… play chess or take him to breakfast or… or something, it doesn't really matter what. Be more than just… a parental figure. Be his dad."

"I…" Arthur stumbled, feeling like he'd found the root to the real problem between them. Outside of the political mess, the real monster that had swallowed them whole and had been sitting like an abyss before everything else got in their way. "I'm sorry, Perce."

Percy wiped at his eyes, his glasses being shoved up into his hairline as he sniffled loudly and turned his back on Arthur one final time.

"Get out," Percy said roughly before quietly adding, "please."

"Alright."

Arthur stopped though, at the door, staring at the brass knob his hand was tightening around.

"I love you, Percy, please don't doubt that at least."

He left then, closing the door as quietly as possible because he remembered. The resounding noise of Percy slamming the front door shut months ago. How that sound echoed in his nightmares now.

Arthur took an unsteady breath and did the only thing he could.

He took one step forward.

Ron had fallen asleep on the couch. Hermione was torn by exasperation for the unfinished homework crumbled against his stomach and relief. Ron hadn't been sleeping well these last few days and Ginny, Fred, and George had been hounding him to tell them what was going on.

Not that Hermione didn't want to hound him herself. His insistence that he'd just caught something nasty and they didn't need to worry was sending up all sorts of red flags. From Harry's alarmed expression every time Ron did something odd, she'd guess he felt the same way.

Not 'Luna Lovegood' quirky odd either. No. More like out of nowhere, 'out of character,' and 'sort of frightening' odd.

Like sitting on a bench on the way to the Great Hall and saying he just needed a minute. Pushing his food around on his plate and only eating after Harry nudged him in the side three separate times. Falling asleep in random places. He'd fallen asleep on top of Neville's trunk yesterday during a game of SNAPS! which was impressive in its own right considering the game was all about loud 'bang!' noises, wasn't it? He'd also been falling asleep in classes too. Just this afternoon, most recently, in Binns history class. Which, okay, even Hermione found that class boring. Really, the Professor had memorized the books and never ventured outside of what she'd already read. It was rather disheartening. Especially since History could be so delightful. Ron would really enjoy it, she was sure, if they just had a Professor who was… well, not dead.

Whenever she told him little snippets of history, he was always fascinated by it. Like when she explained how muggles viewed World War II. He'd surprised her by going on and on about the dragon division invested in both World War I and World War II. How Grindelwald had been a central part of starting strife in the wizarding world between the great wars and how his actions had affected the muggle world's severe depression in the 1930s.

It had been wonderful.

Not the war. Obviously. She wasn't a sociopath. The conversation though had really shown her that Ron loved to learn too. He just didn't like the classroom environment. He'd been annoyed with her though when she pushed history books on him to read on his own. It was… Hermione didn't want to say pissing her off, but that was a very accurate description of her feelings. She felt, not that she would ever actually do it, but there was an urge to throw a book at his head to see if he might absorb it that way.

Truly, it was such a waste, to have someone as brilliant as Ron sitting right next to her and him doing everything in his power to not read. That wasn't very fair either though, was it? He read their textbooks and they discussed things all the time, which was great fun indeed, but didn't he see? All the possibilities they could discuss if he would just…

Hermoine snorted into her tea.

She was doing it again.

She set it down and made a mark on her paper where she needed to add a note on why Gertrude Hamilsmith's tactics on applying a charm to her carpet for protection within the home had been wrong because thread wore away much more readily than stone or wood. She smiled fondly down at the redhead.

Ron had taught her a charm for 'moving ink' in a fit of exasperation for her repeatedly using new paper to rewrite her essays every time she wanted to add something in the editing process. She reached over and carefully pushed his hair out of his face, pulling the paper set against his stomach and bringing it to herself.

A part of her wishes she had the mental restraint to set the paper down, but she found herself looking over his work, tutting at a few misspelled words and the poor opening paragraph. Not really an introduction to his work at all. It hardly seemed he knew where he was going with it, even though they'd discussed the protective charms in depth before ever starting the papers. Really now, he could do much better than this.

She scooted closer, the chill of the November air having gotten to her and Ron always a furnace of heat. Her elbow brushed against his arm, tucked in against his ribs and head laying against the arm of the couch. His legs were curled under him and Hermione brought her own legs up on the couch Indian style so her knee overtook his leg. Feeling much warmer now and great deal more content, she ironed out the paper until it wasn't nearly as crumbled as it had been before. She glanced over at Ron, biting her lip, before looking down at the paper.

Well, it wasn't as if he could turn this crinkled mess into Flitwick anyhow, now could he?

Besides, Ron wrote the central bulk of the essays just fine, he was just terrible at structuring his ideas. Really, it was a bit of a literary crime how abysmal he was at doing something so simple as listing his rather brilliant ideas in a clear and concise manner right at the start. She wasn't the only one to note this. Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick had made such claims on his returned papers, noting the only thing stopping Ron from having top marks on his papers, was the lack of clarity, not the research or content.

Ron's conclusions were always well written too, which was just as frustrating. It was as if he figured out his essay as he went along! She sent a dark look at the boy. That was perhaps what irritated her. She wasn't asking for effort, she was asking for just a tiny, little bit more effort. Wasted potential, that's what Ron was, absolutely wasted.

She suspected that's why Ron had been made prefect. It was obvious what was there, the teachers could see it! They could grasp it. In Ron's papers and in his school work. They could see the gem shining underneath all the dust and debris and dirt and they wanted it to shine just as brightly as she did.

She wrote suggestions for better structure on the paper. Rewriting the introduction paragraph altogether and suggesting he switch two of his paragraphs within the bulk, drawing arrows of a concept he really should introduce much earlier in his essay if he wanted to make his point clear. She wrote his list of points at the top, reminding him that he needed to put those in his introduction paragraph so it tied everything together nicely.

There!

She hadn't added any references at all. She was rather proud of that. With Harry, it was always a lot harder to touch his work than Ron's. Not that Harry was a bad student, but he often tried to make two or three arguments in the course of one essay instead of focusing on one and pursuing that. Where Ron lacked structure, Harry lacked focus.

Ron woke up soon after that, stretching out like a cat, bones cracking and jaw popping as he yawned. She had to hide a blush as he glanced at her, noting the fact that she'd moved closer to him while he'd been sleeping. Her knee crossing his thigh.

He didn't pull away though or adjust himself.

Instead, he ruffled his own hair, messing it up more than before and gave her a hooked grin, half his teeth showing. When he sat up, they were so close that their shoulder's bumped into one another, but Ron seemed entirely unconcerned with their proximity and Hermione certainly had no intentions of breaking it herself.

"I see you've been busy," Ron said casually, picking up his paper and smiling down at it.

Hermione tutted.

"Well, not all of us can fall asleep in a public place, snoring up a storm."

"I was not snoring," Ron dismissed, before glancing subconsciously at her from the corner of his eye. "You're joking, right?"

She stared back at him blankly, raising her eyebrows in that way Molly Weasley tended to do when someone has asked a stupid question because she knew how much it unnerved him. He blushed, muttering darkly to himself as he started gathering his things up, including one of his shoes that had fallen off in his slumber.

She couldn't do it.

She cracked up.

"Ah! I knew it! You little sneak!" He pointed a finger at her accusingly. "Why do I always trust the women in my life?! I should know better. Blimey, that's wicked mean."

"If you're that self-conscious about it then you should probably sleep in your bed and not in the middle of the common room," Hermione said primly. "It's not as if you can control when you snore and both Harry and Ginny say you sound like a bear."

"As if either of them have met a bear"

Hermione's eyebrows went up again.

"Stop that! Evil woman. You've got to stop impersonating my mother, its wrong on so many levels."

"Effective though."

He stabbed a quill in her direction, giving her the stink eye.

"Not nearly as effective as you might think," Ron told her darkly. "It's more anxiety-inducing than motivational, you know. What would you do if I started to impersonate that thing your father does."

"What thing?" She squeaked.

"That… that thing he does that you hate!"

"You wouldn't dare."

"Oh, I would!"

As if to prove his point, Ron clicked his tongue far too loudly for it to be natural. The sound of one sucking their tongue to the top of their mouth with an ungodly wet noise until a loud 'pop' resounded. He did it three more times and she responded with a pillow to his face.

"Violence! Do you see her?" Ron called, startling a group of first years walking through the portrait hole. "She's assaulting me!"

They stared and whispered to each other in wide-eyed fear.

Ron clicked his tongue again.

She hit him harder. A few feathers floating about.

"It's fine! He's being an arse!"

"Now she's cursing at first years!" Ron cried out in horror.

"Oh, stop it!"

She blushed as she realized she had, in fact, cursed. The children looked absolutely lost and unnerved by them too. She gave them an apologetic smile. Ron was having none of that though, he did the sucking noise again, practically glowing as her annoyance skyrocketed. He smirked at her as he fixed the pillow, waving his wand absent mindedly and they both watched as the feathers almost lazily flew back inside of the pillow before it began to knit itself back together. He wasn't saying the spells out loud, much to her delight. If she were to tell him that out loud though, the magic would come to a screeching halt as if it too realized its mistake. Ron only ever faltered when he knew he was doing something impressive.

If she told him a spell was a basic level one before they began practicing it, then he naturally took to it. When she told him what level it actually was though? It only ended in frustration and failure. She'd never met anyone quite like Ron who was literally his own worst enemy.

The first years scurried along, wanting to avoid the Prefects attention. Not that Hermione could blame them. They had acted rather immature just a moment ago, but Ron's smile was worth the mischief.

"So what were we working on before I conked out?" Ron asked, picking up his paper. He grimaced as he saw his marked-up paper. Nodding along as he read over her instructions. "Bah… thanks for this." He waved the paper around, pulling out new sheets and using her markups to guide him as he carefully rewrote it. "How do I introduce the protection spell before I talk about carpet integrity? Isn't that how the whole argument is presented first? With the carpet?" Ron muttered.

"Don't start with the argument," she said sternly. "Introduce the concept you have here at the bottom, where you suggest using the actual foundation of the building from the get-go as its being built, to place permanent protection spells down. Then introduce what people normally do, such as the carpet, and put forward why it's a problem."

"Oh! I see, okay, makes sense."

She smiled brightly at him, nudging him playfully as he scribbled down a new introduction. He smiled back, the dark smudges under his eyes a mar against his too pale skin. She found herself watching the way his eyes trailed the paper, blinking a little too hard as he refocused on their work.

His hands were trembling.

She bit her lip as she watched the usually smooth writing jerk a bit. Making his K's too dramatic and lengthening his L's too far. The messy writing was legible though, so she didn't say anything. Nor did she mention the sweat rolling down his face or how he wiped at it every once in a while, sounding exhausted despite the fact that he'd just woken up from an hour nap.

The door swung open.

The Gryffindor Quidditch Team came through, looking knackered and bruised up from head to toe. She made a noise of sympathy in the back of her throat though she didn't voice it. They chose to play and practice Quidditch after all.

She pulled away from the couch, untangling her shirt from Ron's elbow to wave at Harry from across the room. The Boy-Who-Lived bumped shoulders with Fred unconsciously, the redhead pushing half-heartedly at Harry in retaliation. Behind them, Katie was supporting Angelina who still managed to continue giving advice and instructions despite a clear gash on her head.

She looked on in amusement as Harry tried to sit on the couch with them and Ron pushed him off with his foot.

"Shower, you abominable mess of stinking dung," Ron laughed.

Harry moaned in response.

"Give the man a break," George moaned in response as if he were part of the same herd of animal and 'moaning' was their means of communicating. "So many dives. I can't feel my arse!"

"Full body numbness?" Ron gasped. "Sounds dangerous."

Fred swatted Ron across the head half-heartedly.

"Prat."

George though was snickering.

"That was actually a good one," George muttered.

Hermione covered her mouth at Ron's wide-eyed stare. He turned to Fred who was showcasing his own version of Molly Weasley's eyebrows.

"Fred, I think you should escort him to bed, he's much worse off than we thought," Ron called.

"For once I agree with you," Fred muttered, grabbing George by the elbow. "Alright! Off to bed!"

"Oh bugger off, it's not the end of the world to agree it was funny!" George muttered even lower than before, but he did slump rather hard against Fred so the argument was moot.

Cormac was the last of the team to stepped through the portrait hole. He looked, oddly enough, rather well kept and clean compared to his teammates. He flashed them a smile and shook his head, as if exasperated with them all before heading over to the boy's dorms. Angelina looked read to wrap her scraped, nail cracked hands around his throat.

"Hopefully we'll be able to have a better practice tomorrow," Cormac said with a sniff. "When the others are on my level."

Angelina reached for her wand.

Hermione jumped up with a shriek, grasping at the worst situation possible.

"Is he worth detention with Umbridge!?"

Angelina paused, a small twitch spreading from her right eye to her nose, and the wand raised a little higher.

"Think about your team!" Ron cried out. "What if she bans Quidditch?!"

"She can't!" Angelina said, slightly hysterical, the wand shakily raising half an inch.

"What are you lot on about?" Cormac asked, coming to a stop in front of them. Hands on hips, looking genuinely curious.

"There's a lot of things we thought she couldn't do," Hermione pointed out reasonably.

"You're going Oliver Wood on us, we need you to come down now," Ron said, carefully pulling her wand from her hand.

"Now Oliver Wood was a Captain!" Cormac said thoughtfully. "There's a Quidditch man who knows how to lead a team."

Angelina snatched her wand from Ron's hand and sliced the air with a hex. Hermione's half-cocked shield diverted the attack, causing the carpet at Cormac's feet to burst into flames. The blonde yelped before leaping back and looking incredulously at Angelina.

"What has gotten into you?!" The sixth-year Gryffindor demanded angrily, puffing out his chest, looking very much like an indignant hen than whatever he was attempting to impersonate.

"Just leave her be, you troll brained woodless broom," Ron snapped.

Oh.

Hermione hadn't heard that one before.

"I haven't done a bleedin' thing to her Majesty," Cormac threw back. "I've only ever tried to help. It's clear she needs it. You should have seen how she was leading the practice today, Weasley, an absolute mess!"

"Mess?" Angelina snarled. "You took Fred's beater from him to show off and hit it right at Katie! You broke her broom! She fell on George and when Fred and I tried to catch them we all hit the ground! HOW IS THIS NOT YOUR FAULT!?"

"I did the job of a beater perfectly," Cormac sniffed. "It was Katie who couldn't dodge."

Ron grabbed Angelina around the waist, as she threw herself at him. Hermione pulled Cormac away, practically shoving him up the boy's dorm stairs.

"You'll serve detention with McGonagall if you continue acting like this!" Hermione warned.

"But I haven't…!"

Hermione gave Cormac a fierce glare. He scowled and muttered darkly under his breath, but finally, finally, began to ascend the stairs.

When Hermione returned, it was to a babbling Quidditch Captain half sitting in Ron's lap on the couch. The frazzled, run down, mud covered seventh year looked torn between murder, frustration, and pure grief.

"I have one year to prove myself and I'm stuck with him!"

Ron patted her shoulder consolingly.

"You can always find someone else," Ron suggested.

"Not this close to the game!" Angelina moaned. "But…"

Hermione did not like the look of light that entered the young woman's eyes. Angelina turned, looking at Ron as if she'd found a gnome repellant in the middle of a siege.

"You're a Weasley!" She cried out, looking Ron up and down as if he were a piece of meat. Ron, for his part, looked taken completely back by her cry of delight. "By Godric's Will you sun kissed lot are practically split from the womb on a broom! Please tell me you fly? Of course, you do. You all fly."

"Percy's not a flyer," Ron reminded, looking still too shocked to respond properly or to be distracted by the normal melancholy that came with that name. Angelina waved that away as if she were being offered a rotten piece of fruit.

"An anomaly. Please tell me you're not an anomaly?"

"I'm not?"

"Then we're fine! How are you at Keeping?"

"Not bad?"

"I'll take it!"

Ron looked utterly gob smacked.

Hermione though, felt the complete opposite.

"He can't!"

Ron tilted around Angelina to look at her, his eyebrows raised in an unimpressed manner as she sputtered. Angelina too appeared less than pleased with Hermione's interruption to their somewhat private conversation. It was at this moment Angelina realized her position on Ron's lap and hurriedly removed herself from him. Standing more rigid and formal as she worked to straighten her clothes and hair.

"He can't what?" Angelina demanded.

Hermione's hands unwound from her shirt, the wrinkled material falling loose in front of her as she turned her anxiousness outwards.

"I don't mean… It's just that he can't join the Quidditch team," Hermione insisted. She looked to Ron to help her out, to explain, but he stood silent. As Angelina turned her full attention to her, Hermione saw Ron make a 'go on' gesture, the smallest angry furrow to his brows.

The point being obvious: 'So you're going to talk for me?'

She grimaced, trying for an apologetic smile, but Ron made no move to help her out.

"So, you're dictating what he can and can't do now?" Angelina asked sharply.

"No, no, not me… Pomfrey said…"

But she didn't know what Pomfrey said. Ron still hadn't told her anything. She glanced over at Ron, pleading for him to help. Ron did not though. He shrugged at her and folded his arms.

"Pomfrey said what?" Ron prompted her.

Hermione scowled.

"You know," she hissed at him before turning to Angelina. "He's sick. He can't play."

"I don't need him imm…" Angelina cut herself off, turning pointedly to Ron. "I don't need you immediately. We don't have time to train anyone else up before the game, but after this one, maybe next week? I could put you through the ropes, see what you can do, and if you make the cut then Keeper position is yours."

Hermione tensed.

This was everything Ron wanted. But he couldn't. He couldn't do this. He was in no condition to play Quidditch games and certainly not to participate in the sort of intense training Angelina was putting the others through.

Hermione caught sight of a fiery glint of anger in Ron's eye. Oh, no. He was truly going to do this. He was going to put his stupid desire to play a silly game above his health. She'd go to Pomfrey. She would. Even if Ron was angry with her for the rest of the year she would go to her and tell the Healer what Ron was doing. Surely Ron would have to see sense if Pomfrey scolded him for…

"I would love to."

Hermione's heart leaped into her throat. She half turned, grabbing her bag furiously to head to the Hospital Wing.

"But I can't."

Her books fell onto the floor as she dropped them and Hermione very nearly tripped over them as she stumbled forward. Angelina made a noise of frustration in the back of her throat and when Hermione turned around it was to see the Quidditch Captain looking visibly upset. It was Ron though, who it really hurt for her to see. He looked crushed. Eyes downcast as he spoke.

"I'm sorry, but it's true that I'm erm… that I contracted something right nasty and I'd be right hopeless to you right now. Pomfrey's got me on a treatment that's pretty rough and I'd probably faint before I ever managed to float up to the rings."

"Is it truly that bad?" Angelina said, using a much softer tone than before. "Fred and George haven't mentioned it. Not once."

"They only realized something was wrong a few days ago," Ron admitted. "I haven't really wanted to broadcast it."

"Right," Angelina nodded along with him. "Smart move. Fred's a 'harass first and realize later' sort when it comes to crossing lines. Still, I'm surprised I haven't heard anything from them. Their observant blighters, the both of them."

Ron waved his hand.

"Only to things that catch their interest."

Hermione winced. Angelina looked torn, clearly wanting to defend them, but her shoulder's slumped and she gave another, more reluctant nod.

"You know… they really do care about you. They have every expectation you're going to come out of the woodworks with some career they'd never even considered or was possible or that even existed. You're the only person who can still surprise them."

"Oh, I think I'm going to surprise them all right," Ron muttered, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. "Right out of their skins and toe-nails."

Angelina looked as lost for a response to that as Hermione herself was. The Captain settled on patting Ron gently on the shoulder.

"Well, we're all here for you, if you need someone to lean on."

"Thanks and…" Ron hesitated before sighing. "Ginny's right brilliant on a broom. She's better suited to a seeker or a chaser position, but she'd make a better Keeper than Cormac."

"I'll keep that in mind."

When they were alone in the common room, Ron glanced at her, a lost expression on his face.

"I wasn't going to agree to join the Quidditch team, you know. I wish you would have trusted me a little."

Hermione pressed her lips together before shaking her head.

"When it comes to the things we obsess with," Hermione said carefully, "you're just as stubborn as I am. If I was offered a library, I'd read every book, even if one might have a Tom Riddle in it."

Ron looked horrified at that though.

But he didn't argue with her either.