"The Incentive" by QA
Angry Tea Kettles
"Are you okay, Ron?"
The crumpled quill scratched slowly against the dry parchment full of notes in uncoordinated circles and blobs.
"Ron?" Hermione asked a second time.
"Just fine," he responded in a monotone.
"Well, you certainly don't act like you're fine," she whispered under the sound of Professor Sprout's voice.
"Perhaps some of us have our own definitions of 'fine', then, Hermione," Ron snapped along with the twigs of a bubbleblossom bush he now turned his attention to. "And you shouldn't be talking during class."
That certainly hit a sour spot. Hermione's eyes widened and she turned redder than the spherical blossoms of the plant. "Well, fine then! Just because I'd like to know what is wrong with one of my best friends, I get lectured about talking in class!"
She was so upset that she accidentally broke off a bud and huge, glossy pink bubbles floated into the air. While the sight itself was pretty, Hermione wasn't as she groaned and made mad attempts to pop them. Ron didn't help her.
The rest of the class was spend having a very clammed-up Ron and frustrated Hermione, with Harry in the middle again. Conversation with either one of his friends would end up in jealously, so he mostly kept quiet.
"Honestly, I was trying to help!" Hermione remarked to Harry when Ron left without a word. "Do you have any idea what's wrong?"
"Er," Harry began. No doubt in his mind he was just ticked off at Terry. So what could he tell Hermione? "Well, you know, stuff."
"What do you mean, 'stuff'? What kind of 'stuff' makes him mad at me for no reason? What makes him shut up when he never shuts up normally?" she inquired in an instant.
"I dunno! I dunno!" Harry repeated again and again. Note to self, he thought. Even the word 'stuff' can mean a thousand words when dealing with friends' tangled love lives. Keep mouth shut.
·~··~··~·
Ron had skipped lunch to go to his anger management courses. Rather, punching the hell out of a pillow and yelling his head off at anyone who came within 10 feet. Harry came up to get his Divination book when he found Ron.
"Let me guess. Terry reincarnated into your pillow?" Harry rolled his eyes at the doorway.
"It's- punch-not- punch-about- punch-him!- punch, punch, punch"
"Oh, give it up, Ron! You'll go crazy before you just tell her you fancy the bloody hell out of her and get rid of that git!" Harry screamed over the sound of tearing fabric.
"What good will that do?!?!" he screamed.
"Because she's not stupid, Ron! It would have to take someone really thick to think that Terry is worth a fraction of you!"
Ron didn't respond, but disappeared into a sudden eruption of tiny white feathers.
·~··~··~·
Ron showed up late to Double Charms with the Ravenclaws. He claimed he couldn't find his wand, but it was hard not to notice his red eyes even under the attempts to cover them with his hands. Unfortunately, the two people Ron wanted to notice the least, in fact, did.
Hermione sat with Terry. She secretly hated to do it, but she couldn't stand being near Ron right now. As soon as she saw what condition her friend was in when he entered, she immediately felt responsible and guilty. What kind of a girl was she, anyway, to break his poor little heart and then make him cry right before Charms?
"What's wrong with him?" Terry asked mockingly.
"Umm, I'm not sure," she said simply.
"He's your friend, right? Shouldn't you know if something's wrong?" Some people might see this as an act of concern, but instead it was only criticizing her, too.
"Don't think anything is wrong," Hermione shrugged.
Terry laughed his laugh (which by the umpteenth time was making her cringe). "So I guess he's just one big, fat, red-haired cry baby who doesn't have enough money to buy a tissue."
Her heart rate increased rapidly, her breathing quickened. All she could see was Terry's stupid, ugly face laughing at Ron and Ron himself over in the corner. She could only hear the echo of his horribly laugh and possibly the whistling sound that a tea kettle makes right before it gets too hot and blows its top.
Then Hermione the tea kettle blew her top.
Yay! Cliffhangers! The beautiful things that will pry information from reviewers in their hopes of the next chapters. This time, in order for you to find out what happens (as if you can't already tell), you should submit one of the following:
1. The name of a famous musical starring a male
2. This one I've been trying to get for a long, long time. If you have an account at livejournal.com and you have some extra new-member codes hanging around, I'd very much appreciate one. I've been trying to get a code for ages and have turned up unsuccessful. If you give me one I promise to bow at your feet, review your stories, and fan you with palm leaves while you lay on the beach until you die. Really. It's that important to me.
Thanks for taking the time to read my stories, even though I've been bad by not updating too often. But it's hard with city-traveling, obnoxious math teachers, and IMs that pop up like zits on picture day.