Chapter seven

"Ginny, I absolutely hate Ron Weasley."

Ginny spit out the mouthful of orange juice all over her plate, but Hermione didn't seem to notice.

"Wha-what? What did you say?" Ginny laughed uncomfortably, seriously hoping she was joking.

"I absolutely hate his guts! Everything he does and says just drives me insane!"

From that point on, all she would talk about was how much she hated Ron and how she cringed at the sight of him. Ginny was utterly speechless. She had tried to get a word in earlier, but after a while it seemed pointless. All Ginny could do was sit there and hope that either Hermione got out of whatever weird funk she was in, or that some tragic sudden accident happened and put her out of her misery. I was only when Ron and Harry showed up that Ginny made a face and Hermione stopped. Though relieved by the silence, she felt that the two of them being there would only worsen the situation...

**********************************************************************************************************************************

The two of them sat in silence as Ron continued to stare at the now cold eggs. He would have eaten if he hadn't lost his appetite, and if his mind weren't so busy trying to figure out what he had down wrong. Harry and Ginny could only look at each other, and they both knew that the other was questioning whether or not to tell him. Ron sighed and decided it was time to play with his food. Ginny looked at him sympathetically and kicked Harry's leg under the table.

"What do we do?" she mouthed.

Harry looked back at her, not knowing himself.

"Don't tell him, not yet," he mouthed back.

Ginny sighed, but she looked at Ron and figured that at least if she told him, he could know what exactly he was moping about...

"Ron, er, there's something I think I've got to tell you..."

Ron placed his fork on the table and looked up at Ginny. She could see the pain in his eyes.

"Hermione, well, she said that...Ron, she said that...Harry?" she couldn't go through with it.

Harry jolted, not wanting to take on the responsibility, but he knew what he had to do.

"Ron, she said that, well, I guess you could say she's not very...'happy' with you at the moment..." He had tried his best to put it as nicely as he could.

"What do you mean she's not happy with me? What did she say?" Ron replied, with just a touch of anger in his voice.

"Well, she said that...she kind of hates you."

Ron didn't say anything. He continued to stare at Harry with the most frighteningly emotionless face Harry had ever seen. Ginny was rubbing her hands together incontrollably, worried that Ron might do something unexpected. But after a few minutes they decided that he had passed the violent phase. Now they didn't know what to do, so they stayed with him, careful not to say anything, until he was ready to talk.

Three hours had passed, and Ron still hadn't spoken. Nor had Hermione returned from the girls' dorms. At one point Ginny went in to check on her, and they talked quite civilly about the ball. But at first mention of Ron--just to see how she would react--Hermione's eyes glazed over and she began cursing his name rather loudly. Ginny quickly left, hurried down the stairs, and plopped herself on a chair next to Harry.

"Any luck?" he asked, knowing the answer.

"::sigh:: No, none at all...what are we going to do? This is really not like her at all, usually she's always cheery when we talk about Ron..."

She normally wouldn't have said anything like that to her brother's best friend, but at a time like this it proved her point.

"It would be helpful if we knew what was going on, but that would involve Ron talking, and the chances of that are, well, quite slim."