The nearly attic bedroom with walls and slanting roof adorned in bright orange colors, showing ample support for his favorite Quidditch team, was hardly the haven he hoped for as soon as Ron was aware that the Grangers were within the Burrow, his home. The vaguely frayed and faded Chudley Cannons blankets piled messily atop his bed were not nearly so comforting as they looked when he flopped upon them in vain attempt to retreat from the questions filling his head. Ginny'll get hers, he thought, perhaps pondering to embarrass her in front of Harry as soon as they were on the Hogwarts Express the next morning. Though, he thought still, how could just talking to Hermione be compared to embarrassing his little sister in front of her crush of all crushes? There was nothing at all similar between him and Hermione and Ginny and Harry -- Ginny just had a crush on Harry, whereas he . . . well, he . . . didn't have any idea in the world what was going on with him on the subject of Hermione.

"Traitor," he mumbled into the blanket beneath him which was decorated with two Cs and a speeding cannonball, attempting almost at once to drown out Ginny's voice from his head, repeating the exact word that had just fallen from his lips. How can you be upset with her for being a 'traitor' when you did the exact same thing, Ronald Weasley? Or are you just upset that she got to go to the Yule Ball with Krum and you were turned down by that French veela? . . . Honestly, he couldn't tell if it was Ginny or himself yelling at him, but whoever it was did have a point.

But that wasn't the point at all -- it was the same argument Hermione had put up the night of the Yule Ball when they returned to the Gryffindor common room.


"I can't believe you went to the Yule Ball with that ... that ... Bulgarian creep!" Ron muttered slightly above his typical tone of muttering as he followed Hermione into the Gryffindor common room with several others -- all of which went hurriedly towards the dormitories, sensing another row by the thickening of the air around them . . . like an ominous storm.

Hermione whirled around once they were past the tunnel leading into the common room, glaring at him with nearly blazing eyes. "Bulgarian creep? Honestly, Ron, when are you going to grow up?" she asked, more shrilly and demanding than her usual inquiries.

"As soon as you apologize for being a traitor, Hermione! How could you do that?" It was the first thing that came to him as explanation of his anger and apparent immaturity over the subject. Even as it spoke it aloud, seeds of doubt were planted in the back of his mind -- was that really why he was so upset? It sounded pretty well and good in his head, but voicing it made him sound ... downright stupid.

"Honestly!" she repeated her favorite exclamation of frustration, rolling her eyes at the sheer stupidity of the statement. "If I'm a traitor for going to the Yule Ball with Viktor, then you should be a traitor for asking Fleur, Ron."

His cheeks and ears flushed pink, then steadily crimson, at the mention of his foolish behavior of several days earlier. "Oh, that's not fair, Hermione! You know that girls' half Veela ... she -- I mean ... it's impossible to resist her!"

This statement only served to fuel Hermione's anger until her own face was not only full of color, but also contorted into a look of sheer loathing. Somehow, however, she managed to control the pace of her voice, as if she was attempting to be the better of the two in the argument. "Viktor might not be part Veela, but he's certainly more irresistible that some of the boys here!" Though, the control of her tone was lost after the beginning of the sentence, until she was all but shrieking at him.

Ron immediately recognized that as an attack upon him, but had no idea in the world how to counter it . . . but with an insult of his own. "I don't like it Hermione, you and Krum! He's probably just using you to find out what Harry's doing for the second task!"

After her own shriek, Hermione had turned towards the stairs leading to up to the dormitories, but Ron's insult caused her to whirl about on him once more, this time causing her perfectly styled hair to come loose from its bun and fall about her face in partially slick, partially bushy clumps. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, Ronald Weasley! I went to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum because he asked me. Well, if you don't like it, you know what the solution is, don't you?" she demanded, leveling him with a stare.

"Oh, yeah? What's that?" he yelled back, staring so intently back at her that he never heard the door to the porthole swing open behind him.

"Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does and not as a last resort!" And, at that, she turned and stormed up to the girl's dormitory.


Even at the memory of the heated argument -- one of the most heated they had ever had, which was saying a lot -- Ron felt himself again turning into the goldfish he had been that Christmas night; thunderstruck, sputtering. Then, without any prior warning, he began to question not only himself, but his motives and excuses: who really missed the point? Rolling onto his back to prevent further smothering against the tattered Chudley Cannons blanket, deep blue eyes stared up at the dusty ceiling of his bedroom and what little of the posters (moving uninterrupted by his plight, as if it was just a normal day) he could see upon his walls. In the distance, the ghoul rattled a pipe and footsteps sounded on the staircase.

Ginny and Hermione, he thought at the sound of creaking and light thudding upon the fairly rickety stairs leading to the several floors of the Weasley house. Listening intently, he waited for the two pairs of petite feet to pause at the third landing and open the squeaking door to Ginny's room. Hermione always slept in Ginny's room when she stayed over -- though it had only been once that she did so -- and, he suspected, she would be doing so tonight.

As he guessed, the footsteps paused at the third landing and there was a mighty squeak as the door to Ginny's room was opened. There were several more sounds (some from Ginny's room, others from the ghoul above his), mostly of the large trunk he was sure Hermione was placing in Ginny's room, before the door squeaked to a close. Ron had expected to hear nothing else, save for some soft clattering or snippets of conversation from the kitchen (as, generally, almost anything done or said could be heard throughout the Burrow), but he was quite alarmed to catch the sound of two pairs of feet continuing up the stairs.

All at once it occurred to Ron that Ginny and Hermione were about to burst into his room at any moment, while he was sprawled over his bed and partially entangled in sheets and blankets. It was Ginny's doing, no doubt, as she probably suggested -- Let's go find Ron! or something similarly annoying. Disentangling himself from the Chudley Cannons sheet set and blanket, he practically leapt from the bed and hurried towards the nearest mirror (which let out a lengthy shriek of laughter at seeing his mussed hair) to smooth down his hair and brush the wrinkles from his shirt. Suddenly, for a strange reason he could not even begin to place, he didn't want to look like he had just gotten up and threw on some clothes (though he had) when Hermione showed up.

Instead of bursting into his room as Virginia usually did, there was a gentle knock upon the door before the knob was twisted over and the barrier was creaked partially open. "You didn't go back to sleep on a beautiful day like this, did you?" Hermione's voice filled the small, messy room at the fifth landing.

Ron, having more expected Ginny than anyone else, started and turned to stare towards the door. "Er, no. I was just ... uh, checking on my toad." The toad, which was overly large and lethargic, seemed to be sleeping in it's tank. From somewhere behind the door and Hermione, he heard Ginny stifle a bit of laughter. It was enough to drive him insane, her giggling, but it proved just enough for him to be able to screw up his courage, move over to the door, and open it the rest of the way. "Hey, Hermione," he greeted her from his quite apparent height advantage.

"Hey, Ron," she returned, not seeming at all to mind having to glance up from her height disadvantage or the fact that Ginny had turned into a regular giggle box behind her. "How's the toad?"

It was giving him a twitch, the giggling, to the point that he would do just about anything to get away from it -- and perhaps his overly intuitive sister had already guessed that her behavior would have such an effect upon him. "F-Fine," he stammered after a moment of glaring over the top of Hermione's head towards Ginny, whose face was bright red from giggling, both hands clamped over her mouth in glee. He had no idea what was so amusing to her, but he wasn't about to give her the pleasure of continuing her giggle-fest at their (or mainly his) expense. "Er, Hermione, you said it was a beautiful day?"

"Yes?" came a rather innocent reply, making it seem almost as if the entire setup was, indeed, a setup.

Again, Ron threw a glance towards Ginny over the top of Hermione's head. It seemed that his question had caused her to catch her breath and hold it, as if waiting for the entire world to explode. "Um, want to go outside and ... do something?" he finished, blue eyes darting back to the focus of his question. He felt his cheeks and ears flush pink, however, as he realized how vague his inquiry was -- not to mention how juvenile.

Ginny cleared her throat, turned, and bounded down the stairs in a manner that nearly threatened to bring the entire staircase down (and caused Percy, who had since retreated to his bedroom, to call from behind the door to chide her).

"Sure, Ron. Ginny already showed me the garden when I was here last year, but I wouldn't mind seeing it again."