A/N: I had to rush with this one because I'm
going to the airport in an hour to fly to Sydney. Owing to this the plot is
terrible and the writing is horrible. Dare I still ask for feedback? Go on, make
my entire holiday... please? I'll try to get the next part done quickly and turn
it out more interesting. If I can't get to a computer in Australia, it'll be
nine days... In this installment anyway, Ron and Hermione make up and she does
something unexpected, and Ron sees Draco Malfoy performing a very strange
ritual. Thanks to all the reviewers - Dracaenas who is far too kind, B, Leyo,
Quidditch, Winky/Dobby, Veralidaine, Princess Hermione Sorcellerie, snitch,
Haruka Mouse and Gabrielle Antoinette, lwbush, Zsenya, Mrs. Weasley, Cassandra
Claire, anime_angel2000, metal mouth, jen, college girl, RonWeasleyFan,
Tabbycat2000, Tinkerbell, Blue Butterfly and all the rest of you wonderful
people - I'm sorry if I left any of you out!
Disclaimer: All characters and places except
candles and the dream-child belong to J. K. Rowling.
The
unresponsive chessboard, with its rows of neat chessmen like the buttons on
shirts, his hand like a bee hovering over them, gave Ron plenty of time to think
about Hermione.
At breakfast she had poured maple syrup over his pancakes with a
laughable air of forced calm, then proceeded to ignore him and his feeble
attempts at conversation. Harry, noticing this, had given Ron a tiny apologetic
grin and taken his own plate gently from Hermione. A stolen, guilty glance at
her revealed a tense face, brown eyes shadowed, mouth in a tight line. She was
evidently very aware of his presence by her side; Harry had refused to sit in
between the both of them, thereby invoking furious glances from both sides.
All he wanted to tell her was, 'You're overreacting.'
Harry had said to him, 'Maybe you should apologise.'
'For what?' Ron asked, stretching long arms above his head and
collapsing against the arm of a chair.
Harry became very interested in the arm of the chair. 'For kissing
her.'
'She's overreacting,' complained Ron, voicing the words that had
been spinning in his head. 'Besides, I know she enjoyed it.' His words held
a diabolical spark of enjoyment at making Harry become ever more interested in
the arm of the chair.
'Maybe she's afraid,' said Harry softly, almost to himself.
'Afraid of what?' Ron's head snapped up from its place on the
arm-rest and he stared at Harry, watery-blue eyes gently focussing on his best
friend's face. 'What's that supposed to mean?'
Harry frowned, one hand reaching up to toy with the edges where the rims
of his glasses met. 'Maybe she thinks it's endangering your friendship.
Maybe she thinks you won't be like a friend anymore – more like…' He
turned an interesting shade of red and looked down at his other hand. 'Perhaps
you should just try and be friends. It's rather threatening to imagine you
being… more than that.'
'I don't want to be friends,' Ron complained. 'I want to
be something more than –' Realising what he had just uttered, the tips of
his ears began to turn red, and he slumped into the corner of the arm-rest,
covering his face with a cushion as Harry poked him in the ribs.
'Oooh,' he said teasingly, imitating Ron's twin brothers. 'Ickle
Ronniekin's got himself a girlfriend.'
'Shut up.' Ron threw the cushion at him. 'She's not my girlfriend
anyway.'
'Do you want her to be?' Harry asked, his hand once again creeping up
to toy with his glasses. 'I mean… do you really want her to be?'
Ron hadn't answered.
Now, as his hand moved to select a bishop, he thought about it.
Perhaps he had stepped over the line.
I wanted to, the little rebellious voice in his head declared. I
wanted to more than I've wanted anything else so far. It paused. Well,
other than a pair of top-box tickets to the next Quidditch World Cup.
Ron shook his head to clear it and moved the bishop to capture an enemy
pawn.
So tell her that.
Very funny, his other voice retorted.
His mouth, so accustomed to being set in the straight, symmetrical lines
of a carefree grin, curved lopsided as he thought it over. Maybe he should just
say it very, very fast and leave before she had a chance to yell. But no, he was
still supposed to be angry with her.
What do I do?
He stared absently at the place on his wrist where the cold burn had
been, then turned his hand over, staring at the now-pale skin, its blue veins
swimming under the milky surface. There were no real answers.
He'd just have to find out for himself.
The
wood of the chair he was sitting on seemed like hard silk. He kept slipping off
and scrambling back up. It wasn't cold any more; the air seemed familiar.
Looking around, Ron saw familiar curtains, bright light shining through crooked
windows. It was the Burrow.
Mrs. Weasley sat in a corner, her face brighter and younger than when he
had seen her last, her wrinkles gone or smoothened as though someone had ironed
them out. In her arms there was a white bundle, crinkled like tissue paper, and
moving.
'Mum?' Ron asked. 'What's that?' She didn't look up. Walking
over, frowning, he looked at the bundle in her arms. It was a child. A child
with bright blue eyes and a thatch of red hair, its tiny face sweet but
thin-looking. It was almost as though the child could see him, even if his
mother didn't; it stretched out a hand and waved its tiny fingers at him.
Mrs. Weasley followed the direction of the child's hand and looked
straight at Ron – or straight through him. It was unnerving. He felt
his arm to see if he was a ghost, and it was warm and comfortingly solid.
'Mum?' he asked again, tentative.
She was still looking through him. 'Are you hungry?' Her arms cradled
the child protectively. Ron wondered whether it was hers, and whether it was
Bill or Charlie or Percy – it couldn't be one of the twins, surely. 'Do
you want something?'
The child wriggled, waving its fingers at Ron.
'Is there something you want?' She was holding it close, rocking it
gently. 'Is something wrong?'
Getting up, moving into a ray of sunlight that was streaming from the
crooked window like water over rocks, she was thrown into new light, and Ron saw
his mother as a different person from the motherly, fierce Molly Weasley; she
looked hopeful, expectant, young.
Then she took a few steps forward and walked right through him, and he
could almost feel himself disintegrate.
As
he walked down the empty corridor Ron was almost sure that she would be sitting
there amongst the tired lamps and the musty smell of old books and the throng of
passing people, contributing to a guilty shuffling noise that seemed more silent
than silence. Real silence, he thought, was ominous; the guilty, shuffling
silence was strict, full of rules. It was just like Hermione to spend half her
time in a place filled with that kind of silence.
He opened the door to the library and passed Madam Pince, her glasses set
straight on her nose, sitting at the desk behind which she sheltered from the
winter. She glared at him. Ron sighed and looked around for Hermione.
You made up your mind, now act on it, he told himself, looking for
her at the almost-empty tables. She was there at a corner table, a stack of
books obscuring her face – he was only sure it was her from the brown hair he
could see above the books. He made his way towards her. She was staring at the
books in front of her, not moving. At first she didn't seem to notice him
slipping into the seat next to her, and then she looked up and started.
'Hello,' he said as peaceably as anyone with a heart rate ten times
faster than normal could possibly be.
'Hello,' she returned, taking a book off the top of the pile and
becoming very interested in it.
'I want to talk to you,' he began. He could see that every part of
her was shouting 'No! Not again!' and gulped, but went on. 'You
don't need to say anything. Just… tell me what you think.'
There was no answer, only the head bent over the book and the brown hair
waterfalling over her shoulders and the sides of her face. Gently he reached out
to turn the book the right way around.
'I owe you an apology,' he said as softly as he could, feeling Madam
Pince's gaze on him and thinking that she could probably get a job drilling
holes in metal with her eyes. 'For – doing what I did. I know it was out of
turn, and I'm sorry.'
There was still no answer.
'Listen, I've been thinking,' he went on, feeling ridiculously
frightened and calm at the same time. 'I know you don't want to be any more
than friends. I know I've – let you down as a friend by doing that. I know
you've thought of me – and I've thought of you – as a very close friend
since we met.' He paused. 'Well, perhaps not since we met. Since we knocked
out a troll in the bathroom, anyway.' She smiled at this, almost as though it
was against her will. Smiling back but steeling himself, he continued, 'But,
Hermione, lately I've not been feeling like you're nothing but a friend.
I've been watching you, even though I didn't know you myself. And suddenly I
realised that you were more than just a friend. I've seen the way you arrange
everything perfectly, I've seen the look you get when I upset you, I've seen
that sleepy look on your face when you're just about to fall asleep. Usually I
would have been annoyed or passed it off as normal, but I began to see it…
differently. All those little things became special.'
'They did?' she broke in, her voice small and incredulous.
'Yeah,' he said, feeling incredibly ridiculous.
She looked down at her book again, and he could see her cheek turning
slightly red.
'I know you don't think of me that way,' he said, 'and I know
it's disturbing to you. But being your friend is more important to me,' he
looked down at his hands, feeling his ears go red, 'than trying to force you
to feel something you never possibly could. I suppose what I was attempting to
say – before digging myself into this enormous hole – was that I'm willing
to be just friends, if you can forget about what I did earlier.'
He felt a great weight roll off his shoulders at this, but something
inside him was yelling, That isn't what you're supposed to say, you git!
'You are?' she said. He was watching her face, watching her eyes that
darted to meet his for a brief second before turning away again.
'Yeah,' he repeated.
'So we're friends,' she said, 'always best friends,' and looked
a little sad, a little happy, and turned to her book with a smile that seemed
bitter although he told himself that it was not, it couldn't be.
They sat there in silence for what seemed like hours. The guilty silence
of library-goers that was slowly turning into half-real silence was swirling in
his ears. She didn't move, didn't turn the page, just stared blankly into The
Second Sight with eyes that didn't seem to see anything.
Something was wrong. Ron could feel it.
He turned her face towards his and looked at her curiously. She still
looked sad, slightly bitter, her mouth curving in a smile that didn't reach
her eyes.
'You're still unhappy.' The words flew out of his mouth
without his permission. It was a statement, not a question.
The tiniest of movements in subconscious assent, although she didn't
make any obvious move. Her eyes looked into his, and this time didn't flicker
away.
Impulsively he slipped out of the chair and dropped to his knees in front
of her, half in joke and half in earnest. 'Hermione, what have I done? Is this
enough for you? I'm sorry! I'm sorry! We're still friends! Just –
don't look so unhappy. Listen, I know I shouldn't have done that.' At the
sight of him, all arms and legs, on his knees on the library floor, she smiled
briefly. He smiled too, the lopsided smile that refused to go away.
He was shocked when she brought up a hand to run two fingers along the
curve of his mouth, something she would never have done in her right mind even
if she hadn't been angry with him. 'Your smile is different,' she said
softly, reflectively. 'It's nice this way. Keep it like that,' for he had
stopped smiling and now looked nervously up at her. She stopped as well, her
hand coming down to the table. 'Oh, I'm sorry.'
Anticipation and apprehension were rising in him. 'Hermione? I thought
you were all right with us being just friends.'
There was a brief pause. 'Maybe I'm not,' she said, so softly that
he thought he had misheard.
'What?'
'Maybe I want more than that,' she burst out, startling him. 'Maybe
I want to be more than friends after all.'
'But I thought –' Ron stuttered, speechless, 'I thought you were
angry with me because I wanted to.' Just proves I know nothing about
girls.
'I was angry because you confused me,' she said softly. 'I didn't
know what to think.'
'So you want to…' He didn't dare say anything more than that in
case she took it the wrong way. 'You want to…?'
She smiled, still sad, but the bitterness gone. 'Let's give it a
shot, shall we? Just a try at being sort-of-together. In a twisted kind of way.
See if it's more than a bout of madness. That's the only way to know, after
all…'
He smiled back at her, slipping back onto the chair, and then stopped.
'Hermione, do you really feel the same way?'
'I suppose so,' she said guardedly.
'You don't feel sorry for me, or anything, do you? I don't need
pity. I just want to know what you want. Do you really want to give it a
shot?' He couldn't somehow seem to keep the hopefulness out of his voice.
'Yes,' she said, and he couldn't help noticing that she still
looked sad and although the smile now reached her eyes it was tinged with
something that was not completely happy. He thought he knew why – he felt
slightly the same way, although a strange exhilaration was rising to take the
place of his earlier apprehension. They would never, ever be the same again.
They could never go back to being just friends. Somehow he could not rid himself
of doubt, of the suspicion that this was the only reason she wanted to try.
Either that, or pity.
Don't be so proud, you idiot, his inner voice counselled him. This
is what you've wanted.
He took a deep breath and looked down at her.
'Oh, Hermione,' he said, 'don't look so sad,' and he was
bending down to kiss the corner of her mouth and ducking out of the library
through the rows of books and silent, moving people to avoid Madam Pince's
glare.
Now
that he was in an admittedly tense sort of relationship with Hermione, Ron
didn't know how to act. Was he supposed to be like Percy, who had a solid,
almost staid relationship, or like Fred, whose relationship with Angelina was
less than staid? During breakfast Harry had noticed that she was no longer tense
from sitting at Ron's left, and had winked at him.
Perhaps this hadn't been such a good idea after all.
Maybe it wasn't, said the first voice.
Yes it was, said the second.
So he found himself in the common room, in front of the fire, Harry and
Hermione by his side, in that kind of friendly silence that was infinitely
comforting. The silence of people who were so at ease with each other that they
felt no need to say anything. Tentatively he reached out to put an arm around
Hermione, and to his surprise she leant back against his shoulder comfortably.
Harry, noticing this, arched an eyebrow at Ron and said nothing.
Ron supposed, with a wry twist of his mouth, that they must look like
something out of a picture – the three of them, Harry's messy jet-black
hair, his own hair that was often compared to a fire and the Gryffindor scarlet
and carrots but was in actual fact none of those, and Hermione's smooth-brown
hair, tumbled into curls. His arm around her, and Harry beside him, the
catchlights in their eyes glimmering like distant stars. The comfortable, quiet
silence.
The nights had been longer and the days were growing shorter as winter
progressed; tonight was no different. It was early for sundown, but they were
sitting in front of the fire with the darkness and the howl of the wind that
rushed past the windows like an angry wolf. It made Ron uneasy. The brief
sunlight left no relief; instead he felt as though something was building up.
Midwinter day was looming close, according to Professor Trelawney, who had
rattled on about gloom and doom for the entire lesson.
Hermione broke the silence by pushing to her feet. 'Ron, do you want to
continue the Charms revision?'
'I covered the fourth chapter myself,' he said.
'Oh.' She looked surprised. 'Well, I'll go over Transfiguration
with you, then. Coming?'
'In a moment,' said Ron, knowing full well that Harry wanted to talk
to him in private. 'You go first.'
She climbed out of the portrait hole. Ron watched her go, watched the
brown hair that tumbled over her shoulders.
Harry turned to him with a slight, disbelieving grin. 'You've made
up, then?'
'Yes. I suppose you could call it that.'
Harry pushed a lock of hair out of his glasses, and stared intently at
Ron. 'You must have done something really, really good – or right at least
– to make her comfortable enough to let you do that.'
Ron grinned sheepishly. 'Er – we're sort-of together.'
'What?' Harry's bright green eyes flicked upward towards his
friend's blue ones. 'I thought –'
'Listen, Harry, I know it sounds crazy,' Ron said firmly, 'but
we're giving it a shot. And I don't know what to do!' His last sentence
turned into a ragged plea, rising a few notches higher. 'I just don't know
how to act. Am I supposed to be the same around her or totally different?'
A mischievous grin spread over Harry's face. 'Write her a poem,' he
suggested wickedly. 'Find something that rhymes with Hermione. Then send her
flowers. Then you can try a serenade –' He was cut off as Ron pelted him
with a cushion. 'Seriously, Ron, I don't know what she's expecting of you.
Find out.'
Half-heartedly Ron groaned and stepped towards the portrait hole.
On the way to the library he heard a strange noise from an empty
classroom and stopped to peek in. It was dark inside other than a spark of blue
light that flickered as though a breeze was blowing. Curious, he kept close by
the door and watched.
There was someone in the classroom.
Ron, squinting at the light, saw it moving, being lifted. The blue light
was growing, shining with an icy glint that reminded him of icicles and frost,
and other, smaller blue lights were growing in a circle around it. Candles. The
person was lighting a ring of candles.
As the blue light made an eerie circle around the person, Ron caught a
glimpse of pale hair and glittering grey eyes. Draco Malfoy. He was holding the
largest candle and whispering something. The flames grew to resemble blades of
cold grass. Ron was indeed beginning to feel something entering, something evil,
something cold at any rate. It felt like a less intense cold burn. He
didn't feel like setting foot in the room for fear the cold would envelop him.
As the chant grew louder and the flames burned like miniature suns the
cold became more painful. Ron could feel something entering, something
that wanted only to harm… Its presence was becoming painfully ominous.
Draco looked up and saw the slit in the door from which two watery-blue
eyes, wide with suspicion, were staring in. His grey eyes burned with cold fire.
Ron, who had originally planned to report it, took to his heels and fled down
the corridor.
