Disclaimer: if I had a thousand pounds for every time I had to write that all of this is not mine, I would be rich enough to buy the rights off JK Rowling…whether she would sell them to me is another matter entirely. As it stands, it's not mine, and I await the cheque for £1,000 with anticipation.

Ron

Our first week of school was practically over before I had even noticed that it had begun. But, then again, that may have been because I hadn't quite started that massive pile of homework that the teachers had already set us.

"You must do it, Ron," Hermione berated me – but in a strictly anxious tone of voice so I knew she wasn't nagging (Hermione? Nagging? Never happen in a million years!) "You can't just go round hoarding it all year again." Apparently, last year's approach to homework – namely, not doing it – had not gone down very well with her.

"I could always do the rounds by myself," she offered. This is the prefect rounds, you understand, not some sort of shortbread rounds.

"No, you're alright," I said. As if I was letting her patrol by herself after what had happened on the train. And the mad cow insisted on patrolling the Slytherin area as well, because she doesn't trust the Slytherin prefects to "discourage anti-social behaviour", as she puts it.

Honestly, I don't know why Dumbledore doesn't kick all the Slytherins out and be done with it.

"You sure?" she asked.

"Yup," I said, firmly. She seemed oddly relieved for someone who had appeared so casual about offering, but all she said was –

"If you're sure." The first half of our rounds – the Gryffindor half – was completely uneventful. The second half – the Slytherin half – seemed, at first, to be nothing unusual. We had been patrolling the Slytherin area since term began, and, every day, the Slytherins had jeered at us and threatened us. So far, we had only had to rescue one Ravenclaw first year, who had got lost and wondered into the Slytherin area. Luckily, we were the first people to find him. Today, a group of fifth years recognised us from a couple days ago.

"Mudblood!" the leader – Timothy Rudd – called out. "I thought we already told you – we don't want filth like you in our corridors."

We walked on – we were here to prevent fights, not to get into them. "It's different if they're attacking someone else," Hermione had told me, "but if it's just us, then there's no point in causing trouble." Even so, I had to tell myself that several times before I gathered sufficient self control to move on.

"Most people have the sense to answer me when they invade my turf," Timothy said, his gang – five others; two girls and three boys – slowly encircling us. "But then, I guess you don't need manners under that rock you crawled out from."

Hermione kept on walking. I should have too, but I was fed up with them sniping at her. I turned to face Timothy.

"If you have a problem with us being here," I said, "then tell Dumbledore. Only, last time I checked, this wasn't Slytherin 'turf', it belonged to Hogwarts."

"Ron, leave it," Hermione snapped, annoyed. But the way I saw it, we were already in the fight – all I had done was try to score some points for our side.

"What? You scared, Mudblood?" a girl, Elyssa, sneered. Hermione didn't say anything. Elyssa smirked – "You should be."

The six of them now surrounded us and they were closing in. "You really want to fight us?" I asked, trying to sound sceptical. "You obviously don't realise quite how many curses we get taught in NEWT Defence Against the Dark Arts."

Timothy laughed – "I bet I know three curses they haven't taught you, and, what a coincidence," he looked around his group, "there are six people here who know them."

"Shall we kill the Mudblood first?" he asked, eyes gleaming. He had turned to his gang, dismissing us. "I'd love to hear her scream."

And suddenly, I was lunging at him. The idiot had his back to us and I managed to push him over, falling on top of him, momentarily before remembering that I was a wizard and could have simply hexed him. Needless to say, the other Slytherins had not forgotten this.

"Get back!" Darren, another of the boys, yelled. "Get back and put your hands up!" His wand was pointed directly at me, as were two others. The remaining two were targeting Hermione.

I obeyed, slowly standing and backing away from Timothy. He, in turn, rolled over and glared at me, hatred sparkling in his eyes. He stood and walked towards me, never taking his eyes of me. Then –

"Incarcerous!" Ropes flew out of his wand, binding my arms to my torso and my legs together, making me loose my balance and fall over. But it was relief that flooded through me – he must have been bluffing about knowing the Unforgivables, or he'd have used one, right?

Wrong, as it turned out. Dead wrong.

"You want to fight like this do you?" he asked, kicking me in the stomach, hard. "You want to fight like a filthy muggle?" He kicked me in the stomach again, and then in the face for good measure. I could feel the warm blood dripping out of my nose. This was apparently too much for Hermione.

"Stop it!" she cried. "He's one of you – he's a pureblood! You're making a mistake!"

"This," Timothy breathed, crouching and yanking my head off the floor by my hair, "is not one of us. This is a muggle-lover, a blood-traitor." He dropped my head to the floor again, and stood. "It was you that made the mistake in coming here, Mudblood."

Neither of us spoke. What could we say? Timothy, however, didn't have that problem.

"Someone hold his head up – make him watch," Timothy ordered, his authority unquestioned. Sandra, the second girl, obliged, yanking my head up by my hair again.

"This," Timothy sneered at me, wand pointed at a wide-eyed Hermione, "is why you shouldn't value Mudbloods over your own kind. This," he paused, revelling in the glory, "is how pathetic they truly are." Then –

"Crucio!" Timothy using that spell, unexpected as it was, was on of the scariest moments of my life, but it was Hermione's piercing screams that lodged in my head and haunted my dreams. Hermione, being tortured while I did nothing to stop it. Beside me, I could hear Sandra giggling.

Timothy stopped after what seemed like eternity. "You see?" he asked, turning towards me, his eyes gleaming with triumph. "You see how weak, how unworthy she is?" his hand swept towards Hermione, who was still twitching occasionally.

I wanted to shoat at him, to curse him, to hurt him. But I couldn't. All I could do was stare at Hermione, unable to believe what had just happened. I looked up at him, up at his mad grin and the glee that danced around his features, and I felt nothing. No anger, no hatred, just a clinical curiosity as to how he had become this wannabe Death Eater.

But then I saw something that made me recover my senses – a figure at the end of the corridor; a figure wearing blessedly Gryffindor colours.

"Get help!" I yelled, as loud as I could. "Get help!" Timothy's head snapped round and he too saw the Gryffindor. It appeared to occur to him for the first time that he might get caught. He ran, he rest of them soon following, Sandra dropping my head in the process.

As the blackness started to cloud my vision, I could just identify the Gryffindor running towards us: Neville.

"Ron?" he asked, anxiously. "Hermione?"

"Thank Merlin you came," I said. And then the darkness claimed me.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

You people had better review this chapter, otherwise you'll ruin my nice little pattern of no reviews / reviews / no reviews / (and hopefully) reviews.

I have realised that this fic is getting a little heavy, and so have incorporated the following light tension breaking section in this A/N:

set a couple weeks ago

"Yum," said Harry, "ice cream."

"I know," said Ron, as he heaped some more into his bowl. "Whoever thought of ice cream deserves a medal."

Hermione, who had been idly flipping through a large tome entitled 'Useless Facts that Happen to Show Off Hermione's True Geekiness in General Conversation (Volume 23)', chose this moment to speak. "He did get a medal," she said, knowledgeably, "but they made it of ice cream and it melted all over him. Quite sad, really."

The End.

There. Don't you all feel peace and contentment spread throughout your souls? Except for the poor guy with a melting ice-cream medallion.

Oh yeah, I think the whole 'incarceratious' thingy is that one that shoots ropes out of their wands, but if it isn't, don't blame me, blame the website I found it on.