YULE SHENANIGANS 9
Author's Note: I don't own any of the characters, as if I did then Ron/Hermione would have started far earlier.
Hogwarts-Morning
Unlike her brother Hugo, who was a notoriously light sleeper, Rose could sleep through a hurricane raging right outside of her window. Like her father she thoroughly enjoyed slumbering the day away, especially in the heat of summer. Despite that close connection both Rose and her father possessed the uncanny ability to, regardless of how deep of a sleep they were in, rouse themselves just in time to keep from missing a meal. Hermione had struggled to think it all through but in the end had simply given up and chosen to pursue in her words far more important matters. Rose's childhood had mostly been kept free of the terrifying fears and threats that had plagued her parents and Uncle Harry, but the sad truth of the wizarding world was that it could probably never be made completely safe. She had been sheltered from most of it, though several family members would forever bear the scars of defending the so hard earned peace. It still gave her shivers to remember the nights that she had overheard her parents talking about the grim tidings of how things had gone wrong all over the world and their fears of what could be to come next. Shaking herself out of another almost nightmare Rose roused herself and headed for the Great Hall, hoping to find someone to talk to that could get her mind off of feeling so alone in a castle of hundreds.
"Off to breakfast Rose," Ron wondered aloud with a clear rumbling of his own stomach as he casually pushed himself up off of the couch to stand fully upright next to Rose as she made her way towards the portrait hole.
"Pretty much, you too…I'll take that as a yes," Rose answered with a slight smile without turning around though she slowed her walk towards the portrait hole, finishing off her words after hearing Ron's stomach growling pretty loudly. At her side Albus looked pretty hungry however more than a bit interested in the growing Weasley family drama playing out in front of him.
"Betray me yet again will you ya bloody…," Ron unhappily remarked with a very sarcastic smirk as he set his hands on his stomach, hoping to look upset, as it growled loudly again before Hermione cut in.
"Language Ron," Hermione scolded him loudly with an irritated edge to her words as she brushed her hair back off of her shoulders and glared at him, though Rose could see a small smile beginning to grace her lips.
"Come on Hermione it wasn't that bad, I barely…," Ron tried to object, making even Albus smile as he had heard similar arguments many times before between them, before Hermione spoke up just as he was about to.
"You are right, but even so…what kind of example is that setting for Rose, her father cursing up a storm and everything," Hermione begrudgingly began to reply with a forced smile before her countenance cooled a bit and she pushed ahead, trying to impart a little bit of wisdom on Ron in the hope that it would influence him into not using what she considered foul language again anytime soon.
"Please Mum…it's fine, I'm more than used to it by now," Rose explained quickly rather than allow the argument between her parents to go any further than it really needed to, giving her mother an all too sweet and proper smile but reserved a sly and agreeing grin for her father.
"Unfortunately, but still," Hermione sadly groaned out through a small little sigh and rolling of her eyes as she followed Albus and Rose out of the Gryffindor common room and into the hallway beyond.
"You worry too much Mum, besides it's far more fun to hear you curse," Rose could only barely manage to get out as she struggled to keep herself from laughing outright at the expression that she was surely sure that Hermione was wearing on her face at the words. Seconds later the group stopped in their tracks by the sounds of Ron doubling over in a fit of laughter, being unable to stay silent at the look on Hermione's face.
"Thank You Ron," Hermione grouched unhappily as she huffed and crossed her arms across her chest and glared at him only briefly before she leaned forward and began to storm off away from the party.
"For what," Ron wondered aloud with a curious frown as he struggled to stop himself from laughing anymore and catch his breath, glancing over at Albus for some help on the matter.
"For showing that you have the emotional range of a teaspoon," Hermione shot back with a clear tone of annoyance to her words as she only briefly stopped walking, mostly just to glare at Ron though Rose guessed that she'd also done it to make sure that they were still following along after her.
"Hermione," Ron started to counter in the hopes of calming her down a little bit and salvaging at least a little of her feelings towards him at the moment before both Rose opened her mouth and Hermione glared back at him again.
"Haven't heard that one in years," Rose couldn't help but allow to slip out with an amused and nostalgic smile on her face that quickly led to a very deep blush as she suddenly hoped that no one had heard her.
"What," Hermione quickly asked with a curious scrunching up of her face as she stopped walking faster than the others and turned around to fully face her daughter, hoping for a prompt explanation.
"It's just that you…oh never mind," Rose grumbled out unhappily with a tired and weary shrug of her shoulders before she rubbed some sleep out of her eyes and rounded a corner, ignoring the paintings as they looked like they wanted to talk.
"I think that it's better that you don't ask Aunt Hermione," Albus replied with a slightly pleading and hopeful tone to his words and worried look on his face as he started to turn the corner but then ran into someone and opened his mouth to apologize, only to nearly faint in shock and fear.
"Come on Al, what's the big…oh bloody hell, Lucius Malfoy," Rose started to spit out with a clear hint of irritation in her words before she caught sight of what it was, or perhaps better yet who it was, that had so stunned and scared Albus, nearly spitting out the last bit with a large amount of venom.
"Who dares to…a filthy little mudblood, I should have known," Lucius began to angrily exclaim in frustration as he turned around to see who had said his name before he scrunched up his nose in disgust at the sight of Hermione and the others.
"Oi, watch who you're calling…," Ron started to angrily growl as he took a step forward and reached into his robes for his wand, momentarily ignoring the fact that he was easily outclassed in terms of wizardry against the likes of Lucius Malfoy.
"No Ron, don't," Hermione begged and pleaded as strongly as she dared, hoping to walk the fine line between keeping Ron from making a grave mistake while at the same time relaying to him that she understood his frustrations and anger at the situation, as she threw herself onto him and kept him from fully drawing his wand out of his pocket.
"Filthy blood traitor, you dare to strike me," Lucius growled angrily as he drew his own wand and looked fully ready to strike Ron down but seemed to hesitate for a few crucial seconds and look around, almost as if he were checking if the coast was clear.
"Damn right I…Hermione, let go," Ron shot back with both of his hands tightly clenched up into fists as he struggled against Hermione to free his wand from his pocket, but she had wrapped herself around him so tightly that he could barely move his arm.
"No Ron, please, he's not worth it," Hermione very nearly exclaimed as she continued to struggle to keep Ron from starting a fight that she knew that he would lose, being very grateful that both Rose and Albus rushed to help her restrain him.
"But," Ron began to argue as he fought to free himself, trying his best to focus on Lucius and the threat that he posed rather than just how tightly Hermione had herself wrapped around him, hoping that he wouldn't succeed.
"Mum's right dad, he's just a bloody…," Rose agreed readily as she took hold of one of Ron's arms and tried to keep him from getting himself into too much trouble, though secretly she had thought about using her own wand on Lucius.
"Very unfortunate choice of words for one so foolish as to…," Lucius snapped as he fully drew his wand and pointed the tip of it directly at Ron's heart, which at that moment was protected by Hermione as she glared daggers back at the patriarch of the Malfoy family.
"As to what Lucius," Sirius casually questioned as he tried to make it look like he had just happened upon the situation rather than rushing to get involved so as to keep Lucius from doing anything that would endanger Albus or any of the others.
"Black, the murderer…I'm still surprised that they let you out, then again with all of those bleeding hearts in the ministry…more weak and pathetic leadership," Lucius let out with a characteristic sneer as he looked Sirius up and down and made it clear in no uncertain terms that he loathed him deeply.
"You mean weak and pathetic because they haven't bent over backwards to give you what you want as of yet Lucius," Sirius shot back with a daring grin and glint in his eyes as he knew that he was pushing things and was extremely hopeful that his words would get a rise out of his old adversary.
"Always with the futile attempts at humor," Lucius snarled as he kept a close eye on Hermione and the others, pulling his robes back noticeably so that none of them could get anywhere near him enough to reach out and touch them.
"That may be so, but what I don't understand is what you're doing here, nothing happened to Draco so unless Dumbledore asked you to come I think that you…," Sirius admitted with her fingernails digging into the palms of his hands, so much so that Rose thought that she could see a little hint of blood dripping to the floor, in an attempt to keep his composure and not throttle Lucius.
"I do not need anyone's permission to do anything," Lucius managed to get out through a tightly clenched jaw as he slid his wand out of his pocket but held it down at his side, just itching for a reason to use it.
"What about your boss," Ron demanded with an all too cocky tone of voice and devil may care grin as he took a step forward despite the combined efforts of Hermione, Rose, and also Albus trying to keep him back.
"Ron," Hermione gasped out loud as she slid around and took hold of Ron's wand arm and began to drag him away from Lucius, secretly hoping that her favorite Weasley would not fight her.
"Dad, not now," Rose added under her breath as she pressed her forehead against his chest and helped her mother keep her father from getting himself injured if not worse at the hands of Lucius Malfoy.
"You should listen to your mudblood of a daughter…boy," Lucius declared with more than a fair amount of venom in his words and hope in his eyes that Ron would ignore Hermione and Rose and attack him, giving him just cause to kill him.
"DON'T CALL HER…," Ron exclaimed angrily as he finally managed to free his wand hand from Hermione and Rose's efforts to keep him alive and was just about to utter a spell when another figure stepped in and positioned himself directly in front of the youngest Weasley male.
"Easy Ron, he's just trying to goad you into a confrontation," Lupin softly cautioned with an oddly serene smile on his lips as he pushed Ron's wand back into his pocket and then took a forced breath before turning around to face Lucius, who looked like he thought that he might catch something from Lupin just by the two being in the same room together.
"As if I have anything to fear from the son of a flea-bitten muggle loving fool like…," Lucius began to object as he still appeared as if he felt that Lupin was contagious with some horrible disease, wrinkling up his nose at the former teacher.
"Steady yourself Lucius, it would not be wise for a duel to break out in these halls, no matter how prestigious one of the contestants may be," Dumbledore interjected with an eerily calm and easygoing smile as he slowly made his way towards the small assembly and seemed to visibly reduce the tension between them all just by his mere presence.
"How…convenient…that you arrive now Dumbledore, and Saint Potter is nowhere in sight, what a surprise…you actually care about…," Lucius started to reply as it appeared to everyone nearby that he was heavily chewing on every word, clearly wanting to say something else but forced to watch his words carefully while slowly sliding his wand back into his robes and out of sight.
"Professor Dumbledore cares about all of his students," Hermione declared with a very forceful, proud, and appreciative edge to her words as she stepped in front of Ron a bit and stared Lucius down, almost daring her to contradict her.
"Some more than others," Lucius muttered softly under his breath with no small amount of venom and anger in his voice as he kept one hand on his wand just in case before he tried to force a very meager smile to form upon his lips, even if only for a few mere seconds.
"Be that as it may I believe that you wished to see me Lucius, may I ask if this is a social call or…are there more important matters that you wish to discuss," Dumbledore asked without breaking his serene smile before he withdrew his hands from his pockets and clasped them together, appearing to be completely and totally at ease, ignoring the clear tension all around him.
"This is definitely not a social call Headmaster, otherwise I would never associate with the likes of…them…now are you free or should I come back at a later date," Lucius replied with his nose scrunched up in some very apparent disgust, as if the idea of visiting Hogwarts on anything but business was abhorrent to him, before his gaze snapped back to Ron.
"I have a few minutes right now actually, especially for a former student as…distinguished…as you Lucius, everyone," Dumbledore again calmly continued on by sounding as if he were discussing the color of his robes rather than anything actually vitally important, causing Rose and Albus to stare oddly at him for a few moments.
"Headmaster," Lucius curtly nodded with a final sneer cast in first Sirius and Lupin's direction before he aimed one glare full of venom and disgust in Ron's general direction and headed off, looking very glad to be away from the group.
"Don't Ron, just let him go," Hermione pleaded softly with a very earnest look in her eyes as she kept her arms wrapped tightly around him, keeping him rooted where he was standing as both missed the little smirks shared by Lupin at Sirius at the sight.
"Please Uncle Ron," Albus added with a fearful look in his eyes as he hesitantly stepped in between Ron and the retreating Lucius and Dumbledore, hoping that neither would decide to try anything just then.
"Fine…bloody…what was he doing here anyway, tell me that…," Ron angrily grumbled at first as he seriously wanted to do more than just watch Lucius walk away before he took a deep breath and admitted, if only to himself, that Hermione and the others were right and he should just stay where he was, finally asking the one burning question on his mind.
"Probably trying to get Scorpius alone so that he can learn everything that he knows about Voldemort's downfall and how it all happened," Rose explained her thinking with a less than pleased if not outright fearful expression on her face as she let go of Ron and stared off down the corridor where Dumbledore had just disappeared down.
"Most likely, so then we should do all that we can to make sure that Lucius and Scorpius are never alone together," Lupin somberly agreed with a slow nodding of his head as he glanced down the corridor before he laid a hand on Albus' shoulder and turned him back around to face them all.
"Scorpius would never betray us," Rose stated with a very fierce look of determination on her face and for a moment Ron could have sworn that there really was fire in her eyes, snickering to himself silently that she once again overwhelmingly reminded him of how passionate about things Hermione could get at times.
"Can you be sure of that Rose, he is a Malfoy," Sirius reminded her with a less than hopeful tone of voice as look of displeasure on his face before he shared a look of great concern with Lupin before anyone else could say anything.
"True, though you don't know him like we do, he hates the reputation that his family has," Albus awkwardly nodded with a worried feeling in the pit of his stomach before he thanked his lucky stars that said bodily organ grumbled loudly to break the tension.
"Be that as it may I'm sure that Lucius has his ways of getting the information that he wants…whether Scorpius gives it up willingly…or not," Lupin added with an apprehensive look towards Sirius before Rose cut in, looking extremely worried and sticking very close to Ron and Hermione, as if gaining strength just from being near them both.
"I wish that I could say that you were wrong Uncle…er…sir, but that just means one thing," Rose started to answer with a warm smile towards Lupin before she realized what she was saying and changed her words on a dime with a small stutter.
"What's that," Ron wondered aloud with a curious look on his face as his arms found their way around Hermione's waist and she pulled them together then almost on instinct with her head coming to rest against his chest before Albus could speak up.
"It just means that we have to go back home, the sooner the better," Albus admitted with a somber and almost defeated look to him and tone to his words as he gave voice to the inevitable, leaving them all a little worse off.
END OF CHAPTER 9
Author's Notes: Thanks again to everyone for reading and reviewing this one and the other chapters. As always comments, questions, and reviews are greatly appreciated. I've been a Ron/Hermione fan since day one and can't stand how much the Harry and Hermione fans bash my favorite pairing. Yeah everyone is free to love whatever pairing they want, however I've seen no fans of any other pairing that seem to hate another pairing like the Harry and Hermione fans HATE Ron and Hermione and Harry and Ginny. Ron and Ginny have been called every dirty name under the sun by the Harmony fans, with said fans believing Ginny to be a slut for having all of three boyfriends in seven years including Harry and that Ron is stupid even though he's really great at chess, basically as smart as Harry normally, and has shown an ability to be great at things that he puts his mind to. The fact that schoolwork isn't one of them doesn't make him stupid. Ron's lived his entire life in everyone else's shadow, up until Hogwarts there was nothing that he had done that one of his siblings hadn't already done, then once he got to Hogwarts he was overshadowed by Harry and Hermione.
The movies really hurt Ron and Ginny by focusing so much on Harry and Hermione, with one of the screenwriters even admitting to adding and changing Hermione's scenes to give her a bigger and better role. Also in the first book when the troll attacks Hermione is so scared that she doesn't say anything and Ron does the spell of his own accord without any help from her. Then in the second movie Ron is the one to explain to Hermione and Harry what mudblood means as Hermione didn't know. In the third movie it's Ron that declares that if Sirius wants to kill Harry then he'll have to kill Ron and Hermione as well. And all of that in the third book while having a badly broken leg thanks to Sirius, making Ron almost pass out from the pain, but the movie had Hermione do that. Later on in the Room of Requirement Ron got a lot of flak for asking about the bathroom, though in the books it was Harry that asked. The movies didn't take the time to show the building blocks of the Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione relationships to the degree that when they happened in the sixth movie a lot of people were surprised. In the later books Hermione treats Luna horribly by demeaning everything that she believes in before then needing her father's newspaper and such to help Harry.
Hermione would get mad at Ron for calling a student or teacher something bad and then do it herself without any concern. That being said if Ron and Hermione hadn't been together then they would have been reduced to basically being like George and Elaine from Seinfeld, having not much in common then who their friend was, the trio would not have been as close as they were in the books. The fifth movie took Quidditch completely out of the movie, which really hurt Ron, and made the injuries that Mr. Weasley suffered look almost tame. I can almost see that if and or when the movies are redone and stick closer to the books that there will be some people who will complain about all of the changes from the previous movies with Ron getting better represented. It'd be fun to explain to them that it was the original movies that had veered so far off track. I just view many fanfic writers as viewing Hermione as perfect or almost incapable of making mistakes or doing anything that she'd have to apologize for, where I see her as being as fallible as anybody else.
I've had an idea for some time of a Ron harem story, since we see so very few of them, that during their fourth year Draco would try to brew some sort of obedience potion to make whoever he gave it to obey him without question or something along those lines. Crabbe or Goyle would somehow mess the potion up and Draco would tell them to get rid of it and he would leave the room. They would just dump the potion out of the nearest window. Standing below that window would be a group of girls talking to each other. Hermione, Lavender, the Patil sisters, Luna, Fleur and her little sister and maybe one or two others and Ron would be coming to get Hermione for a class or something. They would all get doused with the potion, and it would be a love potion with no known antidote. From then on the group would be in a relationship and grow together; so much so that perhaps by the time that Voldemort was defeated Ron would already be a father a time or two. Maybe add Tonks into that as well.
I don't read stories about time travel or marriage laws as almost every time they are little more than ways to keep Ron and Hermione apart and have her end up with Sirius or Lupin, one a guy that she has no chemistry with and has few if any similar viewpoints on anything and the other a pushover that had to be dragged into the relationship that he had. As for the marriage laws thing, well if it happened after Voldemort's defeat then there would be no way that the Ministry would pair Ron up with anyone but Hermione and Harry with Ginny. The less said about Draco the better, in the books he's a terrible jerk that wishes Hermione dead several times, in the movies he's really just an annoyance, the movies went easy on Draco and so many fans who have only seen the movies like him a lot, unfortunately. I find it funny that people rag on Ron about his magic and his test scores, he's basically equal in his test scores to Harry and as for his magic if you notice in the books when Ron keeps his cool and doesn't get frustrated he can do magic just as easily as anyone else, he just wears his heart on his sleeve and that can cause him problems. Thank You.