Part Two
Ron Weasley reached out of bed and knocked the ornate alarm clock to the ground. This only seemed to intensify it's shrill ringing, the hammer becoming a blur as it beat the small copper bells. Ron scowled, threw off his covers and got out of bed, kicking the clock purposely in the process before stooping to pick it up and turning the key to off.
Five AM. No wonder he felt like rubbish. He usually didn't come alive until at least nine. He sat on his bed and rubbed his eyes trying to form a coherent thought.
Hermione. Protect. Patronus.
Slowly the cogs began to turn as he pulled a jersey and jeans on. He had devised a plan to help him protect Hermione. He would learn the Patronus Charm, and to do this he would sneak outside early every morning and practice. He'd thought about stealing one of the twin's wands to practice with – he wasn't 17 yet, and it was still illegal for him to use magic outside Hogwarts. He'd changed his mind however, when he figured that the ministry had enough to do at the moment without handing out warnings to nobodies from Ottery St. Catchpole.
He tied his shoes and stood and stretched. I've never been up at bloody five AM, he thought. Well...not since the World Cup anyway. His thoughts went back to that night; of the Death Eaters taunting the poor Muggle families, and this stiffened his resolve.
Picking up his wand he crept to the door of his creaky upstairs room and pulled it open slowly to avoid the tell tale squeak. Luckily all of the Weasley family were pretty heavy sleepers due to the constant squabbling, Fred and George's experiments and the noisy old ghoul in the attack.
He crept down the rickety stairs and stopped when he reached the kitchen. He hurriedly made a cup of tea, drank the scolding drink, and headed outdoors.
The velvety darkness he had woken up to was now beginning to lighten and everything was a dusky blue tinged with pink. He headed towards the shelter of the woodshed so he would be obscured from the house, though not too close to the actual shed. He knew it was full of spiders. He shuddered at the thought.
That won't help me think of a happy though, he berated himself. He tried to block out the image of Aragog's swarming children and think of a happy, patronus-worthy thought.
He focused on the Chudley Cannons, his favourite Quidditch team. He drew his wand and held it out, summoning a patronus with all his might.
"Expecto Patronum."
Nothing happened.
Ron scowled.
He screwed up his face, concentrating hard.
"Expecto Patronum!" He said, a little louder this time.
Nothing.
"Bollocks," he muttered into the dawn.
He tried to think of something, but was thrown off by the growl of his stomach. I wish I'd stuffed my pockets with some chocolate frogs, he thought dismally.
"Hey," he whispered. "Chocolate frogs..." He could see them in his mind's eye, nearly taste them.
"Expecto Patronum," he said firmly.
He thought he saw a slight wisp of something silver, but that may have just been some early morning light reflecting off a bead of water that hung in some nearby webbing.
He jumped back further from the woodshed. The light coming up over the trees illuminated the shed and he saw it was criss-crossed with webbing. He shuddered again, and decided it was a good time to call it quits for the day. He was very tired, and when he went to run his fingers through his hair absentmindedly he discovered that his fringe was stuck to his forehead with sweat.
He returned to the house at about a quarter to seven and was surprised to see Fred and George sitting at the breakfast table in their pyjamas as if waiting for him.
"Mornin', Ickle Ronnikins," said Fred through a mouthful of toast and jam
"Where've you been then?" asked George looking up from a copy of the Daily Prophet.
Ron shrugged in response as he sat down at the table and nicked a piece of Fred's toast. "Why are you guys up so early on a Saturday? I thought Lee worked on Saturdays?"
"Oi!" Said Fred making a vane attempt to regain his lost piece of toast.
"He does, " replied George. "It's just that this morning we were woken by what sounded like a metal bird being beaten with a brick."
Ron hid his blush by getting up from the table and cooking some fresh toast.
"And after that we heard the sound of your big paddles plodding down the stairs," added Fred. "What were you doing lurking behind the woodshed anyway?"
"None of your business," grumbled Ron. "Here," he said, throwing a piece of toast at Fred's head. "And my feet aren't that big!"
"And we aren't that smart, beautiful or charming," George smirked in a sarcastic voice which concluded the conversation.
The rest of the day turned into a right-off for Ron. Not long after breakfast the twins pulled a trick on their mother and Ron had been sentenced by association to a day of ridding the garden of gnomes.
He was glad to fall into bed at the end of the day, remembering first to wind the key of his battered alarm clock so it would hail him at five in the morning once more. He fell asleep almost at once, his last conscious thought was of Hermione.
A big thanks to Alloy & most especially Howl.