SOMETHING STUPIDER

CHAPTER ONE

"I hope you don't mind that I put down in words…how wonderful life is now you're in the world."

"Your Song", ELTON JOHN

AN: Right. Back in business. The first two chapters, I've always liked, that's why there's not much changed in them. It's not until the third chapter that the story starts to go a bit awry, I think, but basically the premise that I'm going to go for is this. Ron is hopelessly in love but incredibly shy about it. Hermione is not hopelessly in love and shy about it- thus she tries to over compensate by being way too physical for Ron's liking. And that's where things go wrong. Now, I promise I haven't just given away the story because by god there are twists on the horizon. Now, keep reading and I promise you it'll get better.

"…Well of course you got twelve OWLs," Ron said, struggling to extricate his leg from the confusing telephone cord. "There's no way you couldn't have, with the amount you studied. I don't think I saw you sleeping for about two weeks…"

Hermione's voice sounded breathless in his ear. It was a bizarre feeling to be able to hear her but not see her. "But it was still such a lovely surprise, I mean, I was so sure I'd botched the Herbology exam."

"I know you were," Ron replied, remembering her hysterical fit of tears after they left the greenhouse upon finishing their Herbology OWL, "but it was all in your head, just like I told you. Look," he said, frustatedly, getting more and more entangled in the long curly wire, "look, I'm having phone-thingy-cord problems."

"Can't you hear me properly?"

"No, the sodding thing seems to be trying to eat my leg. This fellytone thing-"

"Telephone."

"Yes exactly- is it at all related to Devil's Snare?"

"It's not a plant, Ron," Hermione laughed gently. "It's made of a Muggle invention called plastic."

"See? No wonder you passed your Herbology exam," Ron grunted, now on his back on the floor of his room, flailing his legs in the air in a desperate attempt to get rid of the cord. It didn't work. "Hopeless," he muttered, resigning himself to spending the rest of his days trapped in his room attached to a telephone. "I have to say, even for Muggles, this is a bizarre invention."

"Most Muggles find it vastly useful," Hermione said. The tone of her voice sounded so amused that Ron could picture her- smirking, her eyes twinkling, twisting a brown curl around her finger. Mr. Weasley had- with great difficulty- set up the phone in Ron's room earlier in the summer, as Ron had more friends who lived with Muggles than any other member of the Weasley family. Ron had avoided using it as much as possible- Owl post may have been slower but at least it didn't involve any eckelticity or cannibalistic phone cords. However, their exam results had arrived today and Hermione obviously couldn't wait for owl post. She'd been crawling up the walls waiting for their news of their OWLs. Ron had gotten the fright of his life when the telephone actually rang. Assuming it was broken, he'd run to get Ginny, who'd used the phone at great length during the holidays to call her friends, and she'd shown him what to do. "Anyway," Hermione said, "did you get your letter today as well?"

"Yes," said Ron slowly.

"And?"

Ron exhaled quickly. "Eleven."

"Eleven?" she repeated.

Ron nodded, then realised she couldn't see him. "I mean, yeah. I missed one for Transfigs by about two percent-"

But he suddenly had to hold the phone away from his ear as Hermione burst into exclamations of delight. "Ron, that's fantastic. Oh my gosh oh my gosh, I'm so happy for you! Oh that's so wonderful, I knew you'd do well!"

Ron felt better- much better. He'd been dreading what she would say when she found out he'd missed out on having twelve OWLs by two percent. He was kicking himself for not staying up an extra hour with her before the Transfigs exam, actually. But her delight was sincere and quite flattering, and Ron was suddenly consumed with desire to see her in person. It was wonderful to hear her voice, at least…

Hermione was still talking. "…you know, you've worked so hard for this. Imagine! Back in November you were failing! And now- eleven OWLs. Ron, that's so good. This is phenomenal, you've come from nearly having to repeat fifth year to nearly top of the class!"

Ron laughed. "You know very well that the position of Top Boff is permanently filled by you, Miss Three Hundred and fifty Percent in Everything."

"No, that's not true, I only got three hundred and forty seven in Charms," said Hermione ruefully. "If only I'd just-"

"Hermione," said Ron firmly, "I don't think this is quite the time for regrets."

"No, she said softly, "no, you're right." She paused. "I don't have any regrets from last year."

"Me neither." Ron said. There was another static pause. "I wish I could see you right now," he said finally.

"Oh Ron- I've missed you so much these holidays too," Hermione breathed.

"You can still come next week, can't you?"

"Yes, of course!"

"I was just checking. In case maybe your mum and dad had changed their minds, or…or maybe you had, or…."

"No, no, no!…Why on earth would I change my mind?"

"I don't know." Ron said, shrugging even though she couldn't see him. "Just in case you've decided you want nothing to do with me," he joked, casually giving voice to the thought that had kept him awake for the past few weeks.

"Oh, Ron…" said Hermione, and even over the phone he could hear the fondness infused into her voice. Ron gave a nervous giggle, feeling much, much, much better. "When's Harry coming?"

"Day after you are," said Ron sheepishly.

"I tried phoning him but his uncle keeps answering, so I just hang up."

"Yeah, me too. I got his cousin once, though," he said, adding, "so I popped a balloon into the receiver. He screamed like a ten year old schoolgirl." Hermione gave a reluctant laugh. Ron had only met Dudley once, but his loathing of the fat Muggle almost matched Harry's, while Hermione preferred to remain sympathetic towards Harry but indifferent to the Dursley's only son. She disliked judging people until she'd actually seen them face to face. (One of many reasons why Ron liked her so much.)

They talked for a little while longer until Hermione explained that the telephone costed money and a call from Oxford to Dovershire (the county in which Ottery St Catchpole was situated) was likely to run up a large bill. They said a reluctant goodbye and Ron promised to owl her that evening. It took him a while to figure out how to "hang up" the phone, as Hermione called it, but eventually he deduced that the banana shaped "receiver" fit into the little thingy with the buttons on it by means of a little cradle on top of it. "Hah," he said, feeling much better for his conversation with her. He hadn't showed anyone else his results yet and was glad he had decided to show Hermione first; in any case, hers was the only opinion that mattered to him.

He sat down at his desk (dragging the entire telephone with him, for the cord was still firmly wrapped around his leg) to write a quick letter to Harry but found he could not concentrate. It was less than a week before he would see Hermione again, and he was not bearing the wait very well. Completely understandable for someone as smitten as he was- and he was smitten. Through a series of misfortunes in their fifth year at Hogwarts, Ron and Hermione had come to terms with the deep affection they had for each other and found that they both saw each other as boyfriend and girlfriend than just friends. Ron owed a lot to Hermione- he had lost focus early on in the year and was warned that he would have to repeat if he did not pick up his feet. Hermione did what any good friend would and began to tutor him.

Together Ron and Hermione worked long hours into the night and Ron's grades eventually improved. By that time, of course, they had fallen for each other, and though it took them a while to admit it to each other, it all came out in the end.

It was now seven months since Ron and Hermione had first gotten together, and for Ron's part he couldn't be happier. They hugged, they kissed, they held hands. They had shared one Valentine's day, danced together at a wedding, and Ron's last birthday in March had been his best ever.

He had snogged her publicly three times, slept in the same bed with her twice, and even (once) met her parents properly. Both were still quite shy of each other, physically at least, but Ron found that over the months their initial awkwardness had dissolved into a sort of bashful comfortableness with each other. Ron was attracted to all of her, anyway, not just her looks- though, if he were being honest with himself, he had privately decided she was the most beautiful girl in the world when he'd first seen her at the Yule Ball. That event seemed so long ago, now, but Ron was glad for it. As far as wake-up calls went, it was an especially extravagant one. He felt very ashamed every time he thought of his behaviour that night. During fifth year he had behaved pretty badly as well. (He made a mental note to amend that "I have no regrets" "Me neither" comment to Hermione later; he did have regrets, specifically the fact that he had treated her with far less admiration, respect, love, everything that she deserved.)

What was important now, was that they were together. He loved her, and he was fairly sure she loved him as well. That was what was important now. She was everything to him.

That was normal, wasn't it?

Finally managing to get rid of the phone cord (via a severing charm- the phone wouldn't work but he could surely just mend it again later) Ron sat down and put quill to parchment.

Harry, results came- eleven OWLS…

*

"…Just eleven OWLs, Draco?"

Lucius Malfoy's questions were always dangerous because they weren't really questions. He could see quite plainly that all he had was eleven OWLs. It was there in front of him, on the parchment. It would have been pointless for Draco to say anything.

His father went on, exuding power even though he was sitting while Draco was standing. It was the office that did it. He'd always been scared of his father's office, with its furnishings of black on black, with bottle green walls and a dark crimson rug. His mother sat in the high green armchair next to the fire, saying nothing as usual.

"Tolerable marks at best," his father was saying. "Two fifty eight for Potions, two seventy-five for Herbology, two eighty-two for Charms…" he trailed off, letting the s at the end of "Charms" be absorbed into the black bookshelves. His fine eyebrows arched. "Three hundred and twelve for Transfiguration…" He had a tone of surprise in his voice, but it wasn't a pleasant tone at all. The sort of surprise you feel when you see something on the road and assume it's an old piece of newspaper until you get closer and find out it's a dead bird. His father left a meaningful pause before continuing. "Two ninety-nine for Care of Magical Creatures, two hundred and fifty for History of Magic- very poor, Draco…oh wait- three hundred and fifty for Arithmancy- and only two hundred and thirty for Defense Against the Dark Arts…" He looked up. "Your missing OWL."

"It's only Defense Against the Dark Arts, Father. The lessons really are quite the joke with that Figg woman in charge."

"That Figg woman, as you call her, Draco, has powers that could kill you with a mere look," answered his father crisply. Draco's stomach gave a curious squirm, as it always did when his father touched on his Death Eater days. "Maybe I expect too much of you." His father sat back in his chair with an imperious creak. The clock ticked. His mother sniffed.

"It's only Defense Against the Dark Arts…" Draco tried again, but his father had finished with him.

"No. I expect too much of you." His father had picked up his quill and was writing again. "You're dismissed."

Holding his breath, Draco left the office. It wasn't the first time Draco's father had said that. I expect too much of you. It wasn't a confession of hardness on his part, and it wasn't a relief for Draco to hear his father admit that he did expect too much of him. It was just another way that Lucius Malfoy told his son that he wasn't good enough.

"Up in the office again, eh?" drawled his reflection in the large gold edged mirror that hung in the hallway. "What'd you do this time?"

"Not enough," Draco answered, thinking of the hours he'd wasted while "studying". Even the littlest thing could distract him for hours on end- a chipped nail, to be picked at over Potions notes; graffiti on the desk, to be re-worked into by his own quill during Astronomy homework; a mole on the back of someone's neck to be stared at during a boring History of Magic lesson.

The problem was, Draco thought, as he looked at his reflection, pale and expressionless, was that nothing interested him. He disliked most of his subjects at school, despised most of his teachers, was bored by Quidditch, the society he frequented was less than engaging, and the few friends he had were about as reliable as a used Comet 260. Even Potter and his friends were proving less than a challenge lately. While it was safe to say that they probably hated him more than ever due to the events of the past to years (and their presumption of Draco's involvement in certain events) it was the sort of smug, self-important dislike that prompted them all to respond to any comments Draco made with a raised eyebrows or a pious smirk. As if he, Draco, were beneath them. The once equal, mutual dislike between Potter, Weasley and himself had dissolved- now Potter and Weasley seemed to have taken up Granger's usual tack in dealing with him: ignoring him. Potter himself was nearly always looking too preoccupied to respond to Draco's taunts, and as for Weasley, he had gone completely soft since he started snogging Granger- goading him was now about as much fun as dangling a piece of wool in front of a goldfish with a short attention span. Granger herself was the only one with any decent fight left in her, and even she seemed to think herself to good to respond. But she always had. That was what had invited Draco to hate her in the first place- her arrogance in even thinking that she, Hermione Granger, a nothing Mudblood from Oxford, was on the same level as himself.

"Draco Tobias Malfoy the third, son of Lucius," Draco intoned gracelessly into the mirror. Funny. It used to sound better when he was younger. He had thought the title was frankly, scary when he was eight years old. But the time he had started at Hogwarts, he had grown to believe it impressive sounding, and introduced himself to everyone mentioning his father's name. He had stopped doing that by the time he was thirteen, but instead kept the knowledge that he was Draco, son of Lucius tucked smugly away in his mind- he knew he was better than the rest of them, even if they didn't. And then at the end of his fourth year, suddenly everything became more significant. Being Lucuius Malfoy's son suddenly didn't mean only that he came from a rich, pureblooded family and was fairly important in the wizarding social set. Suddenly he was the son of a Death Eater, and therefore, the purveyor of death, fear, black magic, and other evils. Once someone had even spat on him in the street. Draco had been so shocked, he hadn't even had the presence of mind to pick up his wand and hex the offender.

And that's when Lucius had changed as well. In public, Lucius had always taken care to appear quite fond of his son- making sure everyone knew that Draco got exactly what he wanted, whenever he wanted it, all the time. And in truth, Draco did get everything he wanted. He was spoilt. Behind the blackwood doors of Malfoy Manor, however, things were a different story. Draco was given everything he wanted- that much was true, but he was rewarded with so many things for very little, and his father made sure he knew this. Draco had started feeling guilty from a very young age. Not so much that he asked his father to stop giving him what he wanted, but just enough to make Draco seek his father's approval.

But Draco was sixteen now- "my big strong dragon," his mother would croon through her haze of marigold wine and god knows whatever else she took- and he was old enough to know that he was fighting a losing battle. Draco could no more win his father's approval than- well, Hermione Granger's, for example.

Things in the Malfoy household had been strained (even more so) when Draco had confronted his father during the summer before he went into his fifth year. Three am, Draco, unable to sleep, had been walking down to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea when he saw the light on in his father's office. Draco had paused by the door.

"Go to bed, Draco," his father had said, sounding weary. Draco had stayed by the door. He didn't even dare to look in.

"You're working for him again, aren't you?" There was no indication that his father had heard him apart from a pause in the scratch-scratch-scratching of quill against parchment. "Like you were…when he was powerful before. You're doing it again. Like how it was before- before Potter stopped him."

"Keep your mind off business that doesn't concern you."

"But it does concern me," Draco had whispered. There had been so many things he'd wanted to yell at him right then Don't you care that you're putting yourself in the face of death? Don't you realize what you're doing? Don't you know that Dumbldore's going to fight with all his powers against you? You, who have told me so many bloody times how powerful he really is- what about mother, don't you think of her? What about us?

"Go back to bed, Draco." Lucius was very dangerous to be in a room with when he was angry but Draco was suddenly overcome with a deadly courage. He walked into the office, marched right up to his father's black desk and put his hand down, over the piece of parchment on which his father was writing.

"You're a Death Eater." His father had looked up at him with the astonished face of a man who has never been defied before. "How many Muggles have you killed since Voldemort came back?" Draco had asked. It had been a mistake. With a black, fluid movement, Draco's father had come around the side of the desk and had Draco by the throat. He had been angry in a way that Draco had never seen before- in a complete loss of temper, in a complete loss of self control- Lucius was a cruel man, not a violent man- and there he had been holding his own son by the throat. Draco looked up into his father's eyes, to see if he could see the want of blood in them- but suddenly his father's grip had relaxed.

"I don't want the word said again. Don't even mention his name. It doesn't concern you, Draco." His father had sneered suddenly. "And by the sounds of it, never will. This is what comes of mixing with Muggle-loving fools such as Dumbledore. I blame myself. I expected more of you. I expected you would be stronger, wouldn't be swayed by their ridiculous, naive dogma." His hand had dropped to his side. "Apparently I was wrong."

Then he had slapped Draco across the face.

Draco fingered his cheek in the mirror as he thought about that night. If his mother had noticed the bruise, she hadn't said anything. Nor, to Draco's knowledge, had she said anything about his father's Death Eater activities, which were becoming increasingly prominent. The physical mark of that night had faded long ago, of course, but Draco had never had anyone say anything to him that he remembered quite so well as his father had that night. This is what comes of mixing with Muggle loving fools such as Dumbledore. I blame myself. I expected more of you…wouldn't be swayed by their ridiculous naive dogma. Apparently, I was wrong.

"You are wrong," Draco muttered aloud. He was no more suckered in by Dumbledore's rhetoric than his father was. He knew it was complete twoddle. Dumbledore, the Aurors, the Order of the Phoenix, Potter- they were all fools, fighting for a bunch of idiotic ideals.

"Aren't they?"

"Who?" asked his reflection.

"Them."

"Them who?"

"Never mind," Draco mumbled. "You wouldn't understand."

"And why not?"

"Because you're just my reflection," Draco answered snappily. "And if I don't understand, I don't see how you would. All you know is what I know."

"Not quite," said his reflection triumphantly. "Everything backwards here. Sometimes it's good to look at things another way, you know."

"Ridiculous dogma," Draco snapped, turning away. He didn't care about looking at things another way. He didn't care about anything. There was nothing left to do but to finish school, and leave the Manor and- do what? There was nothing to do. He'd follow in his father's footsteps just like everyone expected him to, and when Dumbledore and the rest of those fools had finished with Voldemort and his Death Eaters, there would be nothing left.

Not that there was anything to lose, as it was.