When Ron returned to the common room, Harry and Hermione were still there, looking slightly frightened and ashamed. Ron was glad his headache was gone, now he would be able on focusing a lot better on killing them both.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he snapped.
No one else was in the common room. It was just the three of them.
"Well…" Hermione said, biting her lip, "We were worried!"
"Worried?" stammered Ron, "Worried about what? I wouldn't be so mad if you had told me before everyone else in the castle found out!"
"We're sorry!" Harry exclaimed, "This is exactly the kind of reaction we were trying to avoid! We were hoping that we could all still be best friends which was why we didn't tell you!"
Ron gaped at him.
"We could have been!" he shouted, "If you had actually cared and told me before I had to find out the way I did!"
With that he stormed off and headed up the stairs. He flung himself into his bed without changing into his pajamas. He just sat up, closed the hangings, and fell asleep around five minutes later.
When he woke up the next day, he felt horrible. He felt angry at Harry and Hermione, angry at himself, and angry at the whole school. He did not want to go to classes that day at all.
"Ron?" Harry's voice said through the hangings.
"Leave me alone."
"No. I want to talk to you."
Ron sat up and opened the hangings around his bed.
"About what?" he snapped, "How you obviously felt that it wouldn't matter if I didn't know? How incredibly sorry you are for being an ignorant prat?" Ron climbed out of bed, still in the clothes he had worn yesterday and slept in, "Because you knew, Harry."
Harry felt his insides disappear. Yes, he had known.
"That's what I needed to talk to you about," he muttered.
"Well that's too bad, because now I don't even want to talk to you. So just leave…don't want to leave your girlfriend waiting."
Ron stormed into the bathroom. He waited for a while until he thought Harry was gone, then went back into the dorm and changed. Finally he went downstairs and headed for the Great Hall. On the way he ran into someone…literally.
"I'm sorry, Luna," he said repeatedly, helping her pick of several strange items, including more purple cauliflower, two petrified, yellow beetles, and a small, green orb, "I'm really sorry. I'm not really thinking this morning."
"It's alright, Ronald," Luna said as though nothing happened at all, "Are you on speaking terms with Harry and Hermione?"
"Not really," Ron replied, handing her the orb, "Thanks for that…that thing last night. It really helped."
"Yes, Emplephores…they do help quite quickly. Would you like another, just in case?" she pressed the purple cauliflower into his hand.
"Thanks, Luna," Ron said, pocketing it.
His stomach growled with hunger and he glanced into the Great Hall, spotted Harry and Hermione, and suddenly felt very sick.
"Do you want to eat lunch with me?" Luna asked.
"No, I don't think I'm going to eat breakfast today," Ron replied weakly.
"Alright. Well…see you around."
Ron nodded and then began walking down the hall to his first class of the day…Double Potions.
(A.N Yes, even though HBP is out, Malfoy and Snape are in this story and Slughorn is not)
He leaned against the stone walls of the dungeons and waited. Several minutes passed by and Slytherins were beginning to file down. They paid no attention to Ron, who brushed some hair out of his eyes and watched them form their groups.
"Feeling like the third wheel, Weasel?"
Ron groaned inside his head. He didn't want to deal with Malfoy right now. But he did anyway.
"Just leave me alone, Malfoy," he snapped angrily, boring his eyes into the stupid blonde Slytherins.
"Obviously you are," Malfoy said with a smirk, "You seem touchy."
"Shut it, Ferret boy," Ron grumbled, fisting his hands inside his pockets.
"A sensitive topic I see," Malfoy sneered, still smirking.
"You're walking on a very thin line, Malfoy," snapped Ron.
"Am I?"
Ron snapped. He punched Malfoy hard enough to make the blonde prat stagger backwards, clutching his nose, but blood very apparently seeped through his fingers. Several people gasped. A cold voice suddenly said,
"Fifty points from Gryffindor, Weasley, and a detention tonight in my office…now all of you into my classroom. Malfoy, head off to the Hospital Wing."
Everyone hurried inside the classroom. Ron sat a table in the far back alone. He saw Harry and Hermione walk in together and sit down at a table. Snape began speaking, Ron took in no word of it. When he finally glanced up at the board, the instructions were on it.
As he walked over to the ingredients cabinet, he tripped…not knowing on what, either. But he grabbed a desk to steady himself, but knocking over a jar of slimy substance in the process.
"Clean it up, Weasley!" Snape hissed angrily.
Ron felt his anger surge up again.
"No!" he snapped, he heard some people gasp slightly.
"What did you say, Weasley?" Snape asked in a deathly quiet voice.
"I said, 'no', I'm sick of you…I'm sick of Malfoy. I just don't want to take orders form anybody right now. So leave me alone!"
Ron walked over to his table, grabbed his bag, then walked out of the classroom in a raging fury.
