Chapter Two
When he woke the next morning, Ron was the sole occupant of the Hospital Wing. He shrugged off the previous night's happenings as a strange mix of dreams and got himself to breakfast, where he endured the furious glances of his fellow prefect Hermione Granger. While he hadn't lost his House any points for fighting Malfoy as no teacher had caught them, he still set a bad example for the first and second years; he knew this. She knew that he knew this because she screeched it into his ear often enough. But Ron could never seem to stop the strange antagonistic dance he and Malfoy had been engaged in ever since their first year – and no amount of pestering by Know-It-All-Granger would make him stop.
Up at the Head Table, Dumbledore was curiously absent…. Ron noted that with detached interest, some voice in his brain saying, "Remember that fact." He shoved the voice away and went back to eating with gusto, before heading off for his first class of the day: Charms.
Life settled into a normal pattern for the next three days. Ron ate, slept, practiced Quidditch, attended classes, and did homework. Occasionally he fought with Malfoy. Everyday he fought with Granger.
It was that last fact on the fourth day that would change his life dramatically, leading him down the path to saving the world, getting the girl, and tickling the sleeping dragon. They'd just had a spectacular row in the middle of the Common Room, with their entire House witness to the event: she had been screeching, he had been screaming, and both had said things that made the innocent little First Years blush (and the not-so innocent Third Years take notes on.) His face a thundercloud, Ron grabbed for his broom and stalked out the portrait entrance. He didn't bother to reply to the angered, "Weasley! It's after hours!" that echoed like a banshee behind him. If he stayed where he was any longer, he'd be sent to Azkaban for homicide. His only defense would be that it was justifiable.
He began to head for the Quidditch pitch. The long walk served to cool him down slightly and he began to feel, ever so slightly, bad for what he had said. Granger truly wasn't all bad all the time; just most of the time, and she was better than even Malfoy at getting under his skin. That might have had something to do with the way she was practically best friends with his little sister – Ginny had had a hard time in Transfigurations her Third Year, and McGonagall had gotten Granger to tutor her. It was seldom to see one without the other.
Ron sighed, frustrated, and changed direction once he'd left the school. He wasn't in the mood to be in the open right now, and the Quidditch pitch was just too exposed. With his luck, Snape or Filch would catch him outside and he wouldn't even be able to make up any believable prefect duties to excuse himself. He could just imagine their hateful sneers as they assigned him detention. No; it was better by far to just head for one of the remote courtyards that had lain abandoned for decades, result of Hogwarts' population shrinking with each successive generation. There wasn't much space to fly there, but at least it was something.
He rounded the corner and was at the courtyard's entrance when he stopped. There was someone else already there – a dark figure on a broomstick, circling high above him. Through the early evening's dim light Ron could see that it was a boy, but a boy he'd never met before; a boy who flew as if winged with effortless grace that made Ron swallow convulsively.
The boy looped one heart-catching last time before landing. Unable to stop himself, Ron breathed, "That was bloody brilliant."
At the sound of his voice, the boy looked up, startled. Even from the distance Ron could tell that the boy's eyes were unusually green. Those eyes widened beneath thick lenses and a fringe of black hair, and the boy turned and ran. Ron watched in bemusement. Looking after the now-disappeared boy, Ron saw that his broom had been left behind. He didn't think it had been a careless act – the boy moved too easily in the air not to love the broom he rode – but still, nights were getting chill and if left outside, the broom's wood would most likely crack. He picked it up thoughtfully, still looking at the spot the boy had run off to.
Slowly, still gripping the broom, he turned and made his way back to Gryffindor Tower. He strangely no longer had the need to go flying.
