Chapter 4
There was a notice posted all over the school. It read:
Have you seen
Ronald Weasley?
last seen Tuesday,
during the second class period
in the Charms classroom.
Although one could not walk down a hallway without seeing at least a hundred of these, no clues turned up as to his whereabouts. So Dumbledore organized a search. And two days after the search began, he was found.
He was floating face down in a small stream that fed into the lake. Nobody knew how he got there or how he had died, for there was no trace of foul play except that he was dead. Professor Sprout remarked that a few leaves still stuck to the back of his robes were from a tree that only grows in the Forbidden Forest, but nobody listens to a botanist. So his death remained a mystery.
Overnight, the missing person flyers disappeared. People discussed the circumstances of his death with a sort of morbid curiosity, for a few weeks, and then the bizarre occurrence was all but forgotten. Almost all but forgotten.
Hermione did not forget. She mourned for him publicly. Very rarely in the weeks following his death was she seen to smile.
"He was my dearest friend," Hermione was overheard telling Parvati Patil. "I could never forget him."
The person who overheard this smirked to himself. He knew the truth. She was faking all of this staggering grief, he was sure of it. Once Parvati had departed, moved to tears by Hermione's lamentatory, loving description of the deceased Ron, the listener stepped out from a doorway.
"Hello, Granger," he said lazily.
"Hello, Draco. Malfoy, I mean."
He raised an eyebrow. "Getting a bit more personal with me, are you, in that clever mind of yours?"
"Of course not, idiot boy," she snapped. "What do you want?"
"I want to know why you're pretending you ever cared about Ron."
"I did. And I do."
"Granger, I'm asking you this with all due seriousness. Why are you weeping crocodile tears for him? In the same way as a crocodile would weep for his lunch, if I'm not mistaken."
"No matter how cleverly you shroud that outrageous accusation in fancy metaphors, you're not going to get me to confess to anything," she said softly. "Not that there's anything to confess to. I really don't know what you mean by all this, Malfoy..."
"Oh, you know what I mean," he said happily. "See you around, Granger."
She glared at the retreating form. "Bitch. What does he think he knows about anything?"
She felt arms wrap around her waist. "Was he giving you trouble? Let me know if he ever does," said Harry, directly into her ear. She resisted the urge to slap him.
Instead, she giggled and said, "Oh, hi, Harry. Yes, thanks, I'm all right."
She rushed away. As she ran, she poked her arm, and yelled, "Tomorrow! Damn it, tomorrow!"