Disclaimer: Harry Potter = not mine; plot = mine
trying (things) out
There had been no mention of "the incident" (or so he liked to call it) for about a week and now he assumed there wasn't going to ever be any mention of it. That was fine with him; Hermione had been acting like she had never been away, as if the summer never happened and Harry, her, and him were all chumming along quite nicely. Just like they were that breakfast, where Ron sat, his elbow on the table, twirling his eggs with his fork like they were pasta. He wasn't feeling particularly hungry; he had agreed to try out for quidditch.
"C'mon, it's really not as bad as your making it out to be," Harry said, biting heartily into a sausage he hadn't bothered to cut up.
"You haven't tried out for the team, you simply dived onto it. You couldn't make a fool of yourself on a broomstick if you tried. I'm going to be default."
"You won't make a fool of yourself," Hermione mimicked her younger self, "It's in your blood."
"So now's the part where you race off, the two of us at your heels, and show me Charlie's trophy."
"No," and she leaned across the table and gave him a kiss on his forehead. The Great Hall seemed to freeze around him, except no one seemed to notice. He was sure his ears were pink again.
"For good luck," she justified before busying herself with her bookbag. Harry helped the situation a great deal by seeming as though it was every day Hermione would do something like that, and he supposed for Harry it was. Hermione hugged Harry after she was healed with the Mandrake Draught, hugged him countless times before, and had even kissed him goodbye last year before the train. Maybe Harry had assumed Ron had received the same treatment, and now he was.
Suddenly, Ron's stomach sunk. What if she was acting like this because she truly did like Krum and Ron had taken the position beside Harry of "brotherly friend"? That's all Ron had wanted, wasn't it? The l-word would ruin their friendship and he wanted to protect that at all costs. As suddenly as his stomach sunk, it lifted then sunk again. He realized he l-worded her. Well maybe not, maybe it was just like likeā¦
"Ron, I don't think that those eggs can die again, they've already been cooked," Hermione said, smiling kindly. Grudgingly, he shoveled the food as fast as he could and rose, Harry and Hermione with him, to walk out to the quidditch pitch. The tryouts suddenly seemed not so important any more.
"You were great!" Harry grinned, smacking him on the back in a mock-manly style.
"If they don't pick you," said Hermione, her eyes capturing the stars hidden by the sunlight, "then their mad."
"Almost as mad as me," Ron thought, looking away from her star filled eyes and to his broom, a Nimbus 1000, slightly used, but bought with money Ron had saved working at a local Muggle ice cream parlor making it worth more to him than he liked to care.
They trudged up to the castle through the fresh fallen leaves marring the near-perfect green lawn. In the common room, hearty chatter filled the air as friends separated for the summer fell into their normal routines of homework, gossip, and more homework. He glanced at the announcement bored, littered with lost and found notes, a list of forbidden magical items and various reminders about school events. It would be a week before the team list went up.
"It's not going to just appear, you know," Hermione said from the cushy couch where she sat, a book already open across her lap.
"I know, I just wish a week were gone and it was all over, now," Ron replied, joining her on the couch. She reached out and gently smoothed back his hair; he leaned his head slightly towards her fingers.
"It will all be up before you know it." And with a wilting glance at the board, he began to do his homework.
