Ron didn't get a chance to apologise to Hermione the next day. Or the day after. Whenever he got up the courage to tell her what an idiot he was, she'd glare at him at just the wrong time, or decided she needed to go off to the library. The truth was, Harry, Ron and Hermione were so busy that they saw very little of each other, except at mealtimes, and at night in the common room, surrounded by piles of homework.

After several unsuccessful attempts at apologising, Ron got too angry to continue. "She won't listen!" he explained to Harry. "I've tried – you saw me trying. Can't you have a word with her?" Harry privately thought that Ron's habit of laughing and joking with Parvati at every opportunity wasn't helping matters. Whenever that happened, Hermione would get very interested in whatever she was reading, even a four day old edition of The Daily Prophet she'd read cover to cover twice already.

Harry tried to speak to Hermione, but she wouldn't talk about Ron. For any other subject, she was the old Hermione. He tried enlisting Ginny's help, but she didn't do much better. Besides, she sympathised with Hermione over her brother, so it wasn't clear if she was helping, or making matters worse. "They just need some time," said Ginny reassuringly. "Just leave them alone for a bit, they'll eventually sort something out. It doesn't help that Ron's a complete dunderhead."

Ron threw himself even more into his team captain role. He was forever scribbling in a large notebook which he carried around with him. "My tactics book," he had whispered at Harry, staring at him with mad eyes. "I invented an unbreakable cipher so no-one else can read it, and then protected it with all the concealment and obscurity spells I could find in the library."

"That's...great, Ron," said Harry, feeling a bit worried. Ron was getting more and more manic as the day approached when his new tactics would move from the drawing board to reality.

Ron walked off to shout at Sloper and Kirke for a while. Then, looking around the common room and seeing everyone present, called another quick team meeting.

"We'll be training tomorrow," explained Ron. "I'm not going to have classical tryouts for the posts of Chaser vacated by Angelina and Alicia. I decided it might be an idea to increase squad size, I don't like the fact that one injury will mean we have to have a completely new person joining an established set of players, especially with the adjustment to The Captain's new tactical system. So we'll train with 7 Chasers, Katie and Ginny, our established Chasers, and our 5 new recruits, Delphia, Maisie, Natalie, Dennis and Mirlo. I'll move you on and off the field during training. I'll be looking for adaptability, handling, anticipation and teamwork. I'll design Chaser teams based on weather conditions and opponents."

"Also, I'd like you all to take up juggling to practise your hand-eye co-ordination."

There were groans at this.

"Look, it's a good idea. Just spend 10 minutes a night trying it out."

"Should we do it too?" asked Sloper, an unconvinced expression on his face.

"Of course!" said Ron, with a very Woods-like gleam in his eye. "You'll need good dexterity if we're going to work on bat hand overs."

"Also I want you Beaters to really get a FEEL for your bats." He pointed at Sloper and Kirke. "I want you to carry your bats everywhere you go for the next two days. You will give your bat a name. You will put it under your pillow when you sleep at night. YOU WILL TAKE IT DOWN TO BREAKFAST, AND HOLD IT WHEN YOU EAT YOUR MORNING PAN-CAKES. Every time one of us notices you going anywhere without your bat, The Captain will add a day to your bat duty. This is IMPORTANT. You must feel like the bats are part of your body."

Sloper and Kirke shared a glance, but to Harry's great surprise, made no protest. They seemed to be learning to let Ron just get on with it. The rest of the group seemed to have difficulty concealing their grins. Pan-cakes?

"Should any of you not pull your weight tomorrow, bat duty will from now on be used as a punishment measure," continued Ron." This means ALL of you." For some reason Ron looked hard at Harry when he said this. Well, he had only been whispering a joke to Ginny, he WAS listening to Ron.

"OK, Ron," said Harry. Surely Ron wouldn't..not to his best friend, Harry.

"OK, team. Sleep is important. Everyone to bed, now."

"Err...Ron? It's only about 6:30," said Ginny, gesturing at her watch.

"Yes...Yes.." said Ron absently. "In about half an hour then." He turned back to his tactics board and looked quizzically at his tactics folio. "I wish I could remember what cipher I used to encode all my tactics," he muttered.

The team dispersed, or rather there was a concerted rush to get away from Ron. Ginny and Harry joined Hermione in front of the fire. She raised a quizzical eyebrow. "You've got to have a word," said Harry. "He's going insane. In fact, what am I saying? He's gone insane."

Hermione looked over fondly, then turned back to Harry and frowned. "I'm not doing your dirty work for you, Harry. Anyway, we're not speaking." With that, she seemed to think enough had been said, and returned to her book. Harry looked up and saw Ginny was staring at him. "You helped pick him," she said simply. "Have some faith, he's just nervous and overcompensating." He had to admit she had a point.

He watched from across the room as Ron opened a case and presented the Beater bats to an unenthusiastic Sloper and Kirke. "Women's names!" said Ron loudly.

"I hope you're right," said Harry.

Harry was shaken awake the next day by an enthusiastic Ron. "Look at the conditions!" he shouted, gesturing at the open window. Sleepy noises of protest came from the other Gryffindor boys' four posters. "Perfect Quidditch conditions! It's an omen. I've been up for hours!"

Harry groaned quietly to himself, then sat up and felt for his glasses. His new wristwatch said it was half past seven. Knowing he would never find sleep again, he prepared to get up. Ron was going through the dirty washing bin for his lucky red socks. "Got 'em!" he said, holding them up and then cramming them back on his bare feet. Harry got dressed quickly and took Ron down for breakfast before the rest of them woke up enough to think about jinxes.

Ron and Harry passed their breakfast planning that night's practice. Ron picked Harry's brains about Wood's methods as they both demolished a stack of hot, buttery toast. Then Ron made Harry eat an apple "for nutrition" and tried to find out what Harry knew about Muggle athlete's diets, a development which filled Harry with a deep sense of dread, and would probably have Sloper (who was rather fond of strawberries and cream) screaming in terror and despair. Hermione appeared and took a spare seat on the other side of Ron from Harry, and happily the two of them actually managed to have a civil conversation despite the fact that Ron seemed to have shrunk his attention span to that of a flea.

Harry packed both their bags for the school day, while Ron looked around, bouncing on the balls of his feet, then he dragged Ron out for a walk around the lake before their first class, hoping to get rid of some of his excess energy.

They went back to the breakfast hall after their walk, as Ron wanted to check on the team. He immediately made a bee-line for Sloper and Kirke, sitting with a group of their friends. "Where are they?" he asked in a threatening voice. Kirke held up his bat, but Sloper looked panic-stricken "I've..I've left her upstairs.." Ron pointed to his porridge. "Drop!" he said. "Stand. Up to the common room. Now. One-Two. One-Two..." Harry sat next to Ginny and grabbed another bit of toast, more for something to do than because he was hungry. Ron's voice slowly faded as he frogmarched Sloper back to the Gryffindor common room. "He's like an unstoppable natural force," said Harry. "A tidal wave or something." Ginny laughed. "A hurricane," she agreed.

"I don't know about you," said Harry, leaning close and speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. "But he frightens me, your brother. He frightens me a lot."

Ginny threw her head back and laughed and Harry grinned. The sound of distant "One-Two"'s reappearred, and grew in volume. "Are we sure it's really Ron then?" Ginny asked, leaning in close and affecting the same low pitched voice. Harry looked straight back in her eyes, inches from his own and laughter bubbled up from his chest.

"I'll keep an eye on him, for signs of possession. Though it could be a disease, he might have caught it off Ludo Bagman. It could even be a family thing: look at your Dad when he gets a new plug." he said solemnly (Ginny elbowed him in the ribs). "Anyway, I better go rescue Sloper and his friends."

"Always the hero eh, Harry?" said Ginny with a wink. This flustered Harry, for reasons he couldn't quite explain.

Ron was asking Sloper's terrified friends if any of them could fly all that well. They were all claiming absolutely no knowledge of Quidditch whatsoever. Harry managed to divert him with the excuse that they could discuss team matters in the classroom before anyone else arrived.

The rest of the day passed quickly, with Ron scribbling in his tactics book throughout the History of Magic (in yet another new, more complicated cipher), talking with Hagrid the whole lesson about the Team Captaincy, while the rest of the class avoided the Bilgebeasts Hagrid was supposed to be teaching them about, answering all Flitwick's Charms questions directed at him with Quidditch terms, and staring off into space and humming during Transfiguration, instead of turning his wombat into a slice of toast. McGonagal kept a worried eye on him, but mercifully seemed to understand, and let him be. Harry mused that she had probably gone through a similar process with Wood, who could rival Ron at times with his Quidditch inspired enthusiastic insanity.

The team sat together at dinner, where Ron was mercifully quiet, again making notations on his notepad with a quill. Harry wondered what he could possibly still find tactically to write about. (A/N: See Footnote) They ate a light dinner together, under Ron's baleful eye (DROP. THE. SPUDS. SLOPER. NOW!), then went up to their rooms to change and gathered in the cool light of the mild August evening on the Quidditch pitch.

"Right team" said Ron. "We'll get the proper training over first." ("Proper training?" whispered Ginny.) "I haven't asked Parvati's lot to cover for us, as we'll just be doing some light exercises to get used to the new stuff. But we''ll start with a 30 minute three versus three, with one Bludger and our two Beaters getting used to their new stuff."

"I'll want to swap you Chasers between attack and defense so keep an ear out for me. Defenders will try to pass the Quaffle three times, then throw it into space at the other end of the pitch, since there's only one keeper. Beaters will learn the new system. There's no-one around now, so we'll get away with a bit of proper stuff. If people do arrive, we'll switch over. Any questions??" Ron asked.

"What do I do?" asked Harry.

"I'll release the snitch, Harry. Keep yourself warmed up and practice your swooping. Fly through the pack every so often to shake things up, if you can. We'll get to you after the 30 minutes."

Harry watched as the Snitch accelerated upwards and lost itself in the slowly lowering evening sunset, as Ron released the straps. Kicking off, he felt the familiar but still wonderful breeze pushing through his untidy mop, and felt the acceleration of his Firebolt throw him through the cool evening air. He caught and released the Snitch three times in the first ten minutes then, deciding he had earned a break, stopped to watch how the Chaser and Beater teams were working out. It didn't look good.

Ron was off to one side, not guarding the hoops at all, speaking to Sloper and Kirke making vigorous hand gestures. They seemed to be listening. Ron remounted his brrom and set back up to the Hoops. "OK, swap!" he shouted. "Mirlo, Ginny and Delphia – you attack. Dennis, Natalie and Katie – Defense."

He caught sight of Harry. "Move it Potter!" Harry sketched a salute, grinning and released the Snitch once more. After a particularly difficult catch involving a 100 metre swoop through the crowd of furiously passing Chasers, he settled back again to watch the progress. This time, the shape of the team looked better. Sloper and Kirke were watching each other, as well as the Bludger and the Quaffle play. Kirke swatted at the lone Bludger as it came near, allowing Sloper to shoot forward and join the attack. Ginny threw him a reverse pass, which he dealt with rather well, passing on to Delphia who avoided the lunge of Dennis, and slipped it back in from Mirlo quickly to Sloper, back to Ginny. She feinted a pass giving her a bit of room from Natalie and found herself with a clear run on goal, and managed, grinning, to slide the Quaffle through Ron's left hand hoop.

"Excellent," he said, beaming. "Fantastic play all round."

Harry spotted three familiar figures slinking their way towards the empty stands, and swooped down to pass the message on to Ron. "Right on schedule," he said. He motioned for the whole team to come down to ground.

"Do we have to stop Ron?" asked Andrew Kirke, his face shining with excitement. "I was just getting the hang of that."

"Yeah, you were doing great. We've got spectators now, though." The rest of the team looked round and scowled. "We'll move onto individual work, that's not going to tell them much." Ron pulled out his thick sheaf of notes. "Right, I'll pair you off."

"Harry, Andrew, Jack - I want you three to take this basket of golf balls (he pointed to one side of the pitch) and have the two Beaters throw them, from the ground, for Harry to get. I know Wood did something similar with you, Harry, but I want the two of you to throw them as fast as possible, in bursts of four, no magic. This'll train your muscles and Harry's reflexes. After a bit vary directions front and back, though not in our direction, obviously, those things are hard. Don't worry about them so much.." Ron nodded his head in the general direction of the far stand, from which catcalls of "Weeeeasel! Weeeeasel is our Kiiiing!" could be faintly heard. "Then lastly use your bats to hit the golf balls, the same way."

Harry and the two Beaters set off a decent distance and did as he asked. Harry was soon tiring from the exertion. It was one thing to change direction every so often, but not four times every throw, and to accelerate enough to reach each ball before it hit the ground...that was a bit more difficult. "This is a pretty thorough work out," thought Harry. His muscles were soon aching.

Ron had set up Dennis, who was small and speedy but too easily pushed around, with Natalie, who was trying to avoid reflexively closing her eyes whenever something rushed towards her. Colin was circling her, trying to move her about in mid air and snatch the Quaffle she held, she was trying to keep an eye on him, no matter how he whooshed around, over and under her.

Ron set himself up in a single hoop defending against Maisie and Ginny on one side and Katie and Delphia on the other. He was trying to get the worse combinations to work together better, and the worse goal scorers to concentrating on just goal shooting. So Ginny and Katie were collecting and passing the ball to the two younger Quidditch players. Mirlo was defending, working on interceptions on both sides.

Then Ron put him in goal for a while, while he watched the various individual training schemes. He was pleased, he could see a lot of good potential. He corrected Kirke's grip, to give him more leverage and power. "Fred and George once told me that hard Bludger hitting comes from throwing your body into the swing," Ron said. "Don't just move your arm like that, lean into it. It'll let you get more power, and you won't need to try to hit so hard, so it'll be more accurate."

"Call that a training schedule, Weasel King?" shouted a familiar drawling voice. "Are you meant to be teaching them to dance about? Has Gryffindor given up on Quidditch, and gone into Synchronised Broomsticking this year?"

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle had moved towards the edge of the pitch, the two henchmen making "hur hur" noises as they got the joke.

"Keep your minions back, Malfoy," said Ron absently, "They'll only ruin the pitch by dragging their knuckles over it like that."

"I've got to say," Malfoy continued, his eyes glittering with malice, "It's certainly an innovative strategy on the Gryffindors part, giving the Captaincy to the worst player on the team. I thought Scarhead was a cert for sure, he's always been Dumbledore's golden boy."

Ron turned his back to Malfoy and concentrated on his teams performance. Some had stopped, listening to the exchange. Ron had an idea.

"Listen up team. Malfoy here's providing us with a valuable service! He's kindly volunteered to waste his time pathetically trying to insult us, in preparation for the usual nonsense that the Slytherin's shout at match time each year, and just after the match when they invariably lose."

"Everyone clap Malfoy, and his beautiful assitants Grabbe and Croyle."

The team broke out in smiles and mockingly gave Malfoy a small round of applause. Crabbe and Goyle stupidly joined in for a few seconds, before a furious look from Malfoy stopped them. "Well done, Malfoy." said Harry in a condescending voice reminiscent of the owner of a rather stupid small dog that has just unexpectedly done a clever trick.

Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "Invariably lose? With YOU leading the team, Weasley?" A sneering smile flitted across his face. "Care to make a small wager, perhaps? Ten galleons on the outcome of Slytherin versus Gryffindor? Surely if your whole family pulled all their resources together you could cover that much?"

"We've been able to practise all summer, you know. WE don't have to worry about..security considerations." His lip curled in a sneer at that last comment.

"You're on," said Ron. "10 galleons. Now get lost."

Malfoy stalked off, closely shadowed by Crabbe and Goyle, a satisfied smirk on his face. It was obvious he'd accomplished what he had set out to do.

The rest of the team looked at Ron non-plussed. "From what I've seen tonight, it's easy money," Ron explained. "I can see the system is going to work fine. We've got the better players, the better tactics, and we're missing the most important thing Malfoy's got in abundance- more confidence than ability."

"Light's fading." Ron said. "Let's head back. We'll have another short session in 3 or 4 days, then a longer one at the weekend. Tell me if you get any aches and pains, or feel unwell. I'll set up exercise sheets for some of you. I'd like you to start jogging 3 times a week. (Sloper gasped, as if someone had just shot a cat.)

"We can do this. It's going to be easy!"

Notes:

(Footnote 1)

At the time Ron was writing a soothing poem about jam to calm his frayed nerves. This particular page was removed from the final version of Ron's Quidditch notes (A/N: See Footnote 2), but the copy survived for posterity. (Author's note: "Jam" may well be reproduced in full should sufficient space be available, and also Ron's magnum opus "I like biscuits; they are crunchy".)

(Footnote 2)

For the pleasure of the reader, I attach a short article giving some historical perspective.

The Weasley Tacitus, as it became known (likely due to Hermione Weasley nee Granger's influence), was to enter Hogwart's folklore as the reason for Gryffindors continuing Quidditch success long after all the current crop of Weasleys had left Hogwarts. With some truth: Ron had written down all the possible weather conditions he could imagine and how they should effect team selection, talked of team combinations and classical tactics and variations in them, invented a system of hand signals to communicate tactical changes, and laid down the simplest basic principles of the successful Quidditch team and how he thought you would go about instilling them into a team.

Though the chapter on the psychology of team motivation (entitled "Controlled Ego Destruction and Reformation") was not generally followed after several nervous breakdowns, succeeding Captains found the Tacitus a hugely useful resource, and Ron had thoughtfully included space for marginalia and blank pages at the back for match descriptions and analysis. A Captain armed with it could draw on the experience of increasing numbers of previous Captains, and all the matches they played in and witnessed, as well as Ron Weasley's original genius.

The book was stored in the Gryffindor Common Room Library (and the decoding cipher key passed from Captain to potential Captain for many years) until (it was suspected) the Slytherin somehow stole it, probably through bribery or threats to an unwilling House Elf. (Certainly, it was discounted at the time that "any of our lot would have any dealings with those low down, bogey coloured, cheating sneaks")Luckily a copy of the original Tacitus survived, transcribed from the coded form (highly illegally, by the terms of use laid down by a succession of Captains) by a Captain by the name of Archibald Welstrup, who absolutely hated having to translate Ron's ridiculously complicated code each time, but the Gryffindors found their normal tactical advantage over Slytherin had strangely diminished since the mysterious theft. Annoyed at the unfair advantage this gave Slytherin over both Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, the Gryffindors of the time unanimously voted to pass copies to the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff Houses thereby losing their advantage forever (and therefore also Slytherin's), and a further copy was placed in the library, in the care of Madam Pince's replacement's replacement's replacement, a witch who went by the name of Eldreda Merryweather.

At some point that copy in the library was itself purloined, and the stolen loose sheaf of Ron's original notes returned in its place. Gryffindors moved the original book back to its pride of place in the Gryffindor common room, though were infuriated to eventually discover childish insults scattered haphazardly throughout, directed at the Quidditch ability of the current crop of Gryffindors, written in invisible ink and readable only on certain quarter-moonlit nights. It is thought in certain quarters that this was the main motivating force behind the infamous Slytherin spaghetti jinx (see pages 344-376), perpetrated not long after by person or person's unknown, and encompassing the entire Slytherin House.

Footnote to the fourth revised edition of "The Legends of Hogwarts: People, Places and Events." by Timinon Growl.