Disclaimer: Sadly, still not my sandbox; this is just my sand castle in J. K. Rowling's sandbox.
Chapter Sixteen: Rose-colored Glasses Always Shatter Spectacularly
May
Hermione
A muted thump catches Hermione's attention as she searches for Harry, he'd asked her to wait but they'd end up having to walk to Hogesmeade if they didn't leave soon and she really didn't want to do that. Another muted thump has her steps pausing as she turns down one of many abandoned corridors in Hogwarts. Tilting her head to the side, she turns her full focus to the noise. The sound of glass shattering comes from the same direction and Hermione takes off in a sprint, palming her wand as she goes so she's ready for anything.
"God you're pathetic," Ron's voice has Hermione freezing outside the boy's bathroom door but his next words have her bursting into the room. "Savior of the fucking wizarding world, my ass. Someone says something you don't like and you fucking fight like a muggle instead of throwing out the hexes any real wizard would."
They're too close together for Hermione to hex one without the other. She could separate them, she'd learned how after their first physical fight with Malfoy second year, but something in Harry's face told her not to. There was something going on here that she'd missed.
With a grunt, Harry flipped their positions and slammed Ron into the ground with more force than Hermione had ever seen Harry use. Honestly, she didn't think Harry had that kind of physical power. Especially against someone like Ron, who had shot a whole head and change taller than either Harry or Hermione over the past summer.
"No, you're pathetic, Ron," Harry growls, his knuckles white against Ron's school robes. "You were my first friend, one of my best friends. But I have given you chance after chance to prove than you are a good friend and you have thrown every fucking one back in my face. I'm done. We're done. This was your last one."
Harry slams the bigger boy into the ground one more time before rising to his feet, his eyes telling Hermione that he will tell her everything if she just gets him out of here.
Hermione nods in response and starts opening the door behind her when Ron's mumbled words and a magenta blur fly at Harry's back.
Her own wand movements are a silent, instinctual blur as her hand flies through the familiar shielding movement but the shield only forms fast enough to cover the side of Harry closest to Hermione and Harry falls.
"What the hell is wrong with you?! Where the hell did you even learn that curse?! That's a dark curse, Ron!" Hermione's voice is hysterical as she holds her shield steady, though no more spells fly from Ron's way, and wandlessly casts the diagnostic spell she had mastered first first, hoping her words can distract Ron long enough to make sure Harry is ok.
"Of course the know-it-all mudblood recognizes a dark curse when she sees it but she'd never have the balls to actually use it. It takes power. Power that neither of you have," Ron states, the same tone lacing his voice that he'd used after Harry's name had come from the Goblet of Fire.
The diagnostic spell finally confirms that Harry will be ok for a moment so Hermione rolls her shoulders and drops her shield.
"You're wrong, Ron. It takes hatred but you are right about one thing, neither Harry or I have that," she states clearly and concisely before quickly and viciously disarming and disabling the boy that had been her best friend once upon a time before shooting off her Patronus to the Hospital Wing and falling to her knees beside Harry.
Sirius
Sirius didn't think he'd ever been so furious in his entire life as he stormed from the Headmaster's office to the Hospital Wing but even in the midst of his fury, he felt a new respect blooming for Molly Weasley as he screeching followed his down the staircase. She was just as angry as Sirius that the only punishment her son would be facing was a small suspension. More than once, the older woman had said that no son of hers would ever use the same magic that had taken more than half of their family and she had pushed for Ron to face the actuality of his actions but Dumbledore had refused.
Dumbledore had said that boys will be boys and that Ron deserved the opportunity to learn from his mistake. That Harry, Ron, and Hermione were too good of friends for this misstep (Yes, the delusional old man has used the word misstep for the near death of Sirius's godson at his supposed best friend's hand.) get in the way of their friendship.
And Sirius could do nothing.
Because Ron was protected as a learning magical minor until he was either expelled or had graduated from Hogwarts. He couldn't be touched by the Ministry for any magic he did inside Hogwarts unless he was expelled for said magic or had done said magic after his graduation.
It was idiotic.
And it was the same kind of bullshit that had protected Sirius when he'd nearly killed Severus, the same bullshit that would protect Sirius if it ever came out that Sirius was an unregistered animagus, and the same bullshit that protected many young deatheaters from the first wizarding war.
It was another thing that needed to change in society.
Hermione
The fury on her Dad's face doesn't surprise her this time when the werewolf slumps into the seat across from her after his last class of the day, Ginny having moved from that seat as soon as she'd seen the older man come into the room. Her Dad's concern for the still unconscious Harry is etched onto every other feature of his face and Hermione can't help but be glad that they had adults on their side to help them through this.
Hermione pulls her gaze away from her Dad to the four friends who rarely left her side. Ginny is fretting around Harry's hospital bed, rearranging the get well gifts that were already beginning to come in and straightening his already straight bedding as Viktor watched her with worried eyes. Neville's gaze was slightly haunted every time it landed on Harry but he promised Luna and Hermione that he would be fine (and every time Ginny turned her fretting to him, he asked her if there was anything he could do for her).
"He's going to be ok," Luna tells her quietly, her warm hand firmly slipping into the older girl's clammy one and Hermione feels herself relaxing. After all, Luna had never told her anything that wasn't true.
Draco suddenly burst into the room, his hair sticking up in every direction and his tie askew as he attempts to juggle a variety of tomes in his arms.
The tomes fall noisily to the table beside Harry and he places his precise notes on top so that Hermione can see them. They were all on variations of shielding charms and ancient runes.
"This one is a new variation of the shielding charm we were taught. It disperses more quickly than the one we are used to so it'll help when we're in a pinch but it isn't as even as the original because of how quickly it stretches. If we can lay down this ward fast enough then shoot out our shielding charm though, it will hold our shield while we cast something else like healing necessities or Patronuses for help or even Apparating ou–" Draco's rambling is cut off as Hermione pulls the blonde into a tight hug.
