Chapter 46
The Quidditch tryouts took far longer than Hermione anticipated it would. She figured on an hour, two at the most. Never in her wildest dreams did she think that she'd still be sitting in the stands at four-thirty in the afternoon. But there she was, nearly three and a half hours after it all started, alone, (unless you counted the chattering girls sitting in front of her, which she didn't), and more than a little bored.
It hadn't been so bad when Harry and Ron had been sitting beside her, watching with everyone else, as Katie put all the candidates through the paces. The first thing she'd done was have them all line up and race to the end of the Pitch and back again to gauge who was fastest, which hadn't made much sense to Hermione. Clearly the person with the fastest broom was the one that would win, but when she pointed that fact out, the boys had simply looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
"It's not about the broom," Harry tried to explain. "It's about their ability to control it."
"Don't waste your breath, mate," Ron chuckled, when Hermione argued that Ginny would have come in first rather than third if Harry had loaned her his Firebolt. "I already tried to explain it to her once."
"You did not," Hermione retorted.
"Did too," Ron shot back. "I told you that Katie was going to be checking their agility and reflexes."
"When?"
"Last night," he reminded her with a smile.
Her first impulse had been to argue with him further, but in the end she bit back her retort and settled on, "If you say so," instead. The previous night wasn't exactly something she wanted to discuss with ten gossip mongering girls sitting well within earshot.
Of course that wasn't the only reason she'd held her tongue. The problem was that Ron had been right. He knew it and more importantly, he knew that she knew it as well, but he didn't press the matter. Apparently he was willing to let her off the hook with nothing more than a smug look when the new Quidditch captain produced a whistle from her robes and gathered the fliers around herself so she could give them new instructions.
Needless to say, the sanctimonious smirk Ron was wearing irritated her to no end. She would have liked nothing better than to continue bickering with him just to get rid of it; unfortunately she knew that if she did, he was liable to force her to admit that he was right. And by that point there was no way she could deny that Katie was indeed checking their reflexes, because every time she blew on her whistle, the airborne students racing across the Pitch would bring their brooms to an abrupt halt and change directions; to the left if the blast had been short or to the right if it had been long.
Rather than admit defeat out loud, in front of other people, Hermione opted to remain silent, and simply listened to the comments the boys made to one another about the various players as the tryouts continued. Not that they held her interest all that long. Eventually she let her mind wander and it was then that she realized that she hadn't been the only one to back down. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that Ron had given even more than she had. He'd had her dead to rights, and rather than go in for the kill, as she would have done if the situation had been reversed, he'd been gallant about it and allowed her to back down with her dignity intact.
Actually it was rather sweet of him, she decided, reaching out, casually covered his hand with her own for a moment, and giving it a gentle squeeze. She only meant to show him that she wasn't annoyed, but when she tried to withdraw, he snatched her hand back and linked their fingers.
Hermione instantly felt her face heat up, but as luck would have it, her blush wasn't all that evident because it was a chilly day and her cheeks were already pink from the breeze that had been whipping through the stands. If Harry saw what was going on, he didn't comment on it. Although the fact that he continued to stare straight ahead, without even glancing in their direction, led her to believe that he had noticed and was purposely ignoring it. She would have protested either way, but Ron, acted first.
"Bloody wind," he swore, scooting closer and sandwiching Hermione between Harry and himself, as he scowled at the overcast sky. "Bet you wish you hadn't worn that skirt now," he added, releasing her, shedding the crimson robes that were covering the rest of his Quidditch uniform and draping them across all three of their laps like a blanket. "Better?" he whispered, clasping her hand again now that it was hidden from view.
"Much," she whispered back. "But won't you be cold?"
"Naw," Ron replied, as Katie gathered the perspective players around her again and started pairing them off. "It's not that bad," he continued, as the fliers started to soar about the Pitch in various formations while they passed the Quaffle back and forth. "I have more padding than Harry does," he explained, smacking one of the leather patches attached to his uniform just to prove his point. "They keep the heat in."
"Well, that explains the stench," Harry snorted.
"Are you insinuating that I stink?" Ron retorted in a joking manner.
"Not yet," his friend replied, with a laugh. "But give it time."
"And I suppose you smell like a bouquet of roses after a game, eh Potter? More like a pile stinksap if you ask me."
"Stop it," Hermione moaned, wrinkling her nose up in revulsion. "You two are disgusting sometimes, you know that?"
"Disgusting? I thought that was Harry without his shoes on."
"RON!" she cried, elbowing him in the side and scowling when he laughed even harder.
"He can't feel that, you know?" Harry chuckled. "Not with all the 'extra padding'. Maybe you ought wear that outfit every day, eh mate?" he joked. "Help cut down on all those bruises."
"I don't leave bruises," Hermione protested.
"That's not entirely true," Ron replied. "I do have a few...er... marks," he added with a knowing smile. "Not that I'm complaining," he leaned forward and whispered in her ear.
"You're incorrigible," she declared, rolling her eyes at the sky and trying very hard not to smile herself.
By the time Ron was finally called out onto the field nearly forty-five minutes had passed. Harry remained in the stands however and the two friends watched together as the hopeful Gryffindors took turns trying to get the Quaffle through one of the three hoops the redhead was guarding.
Over all, Hermione thought Ron did very well. When all was said and done, he managed to block more than two-thirds of the shots, some of them without even putting all that much effort into it. Ginny also appeared to be doing fairly well, at least as far as Hermione could tell.
She asked Harry his opinion just to be sure and he readily agreed. Unlike Hermione, he'd obviously been keeping track of how many goals each of the candidate made, because when she asked him what he thought of Ginny's performance, he informed her that she had actually scored the most.
"That doesn't necessarily mean that she's the best though," he added. "She's spent a lot of time practicing with Ron recently," Harry explained, when Hermione wrinkled her brow in confusion. "It could be that she's just learned how to read him better than the others. Of course that's something else Katie will be looking for. I mean it makes sense that Ginny would have an easier time reading Ron, because he's her brother and all," he continued, "but if she can figure out what he's planning, or which ring he thinks she's going to aim for, and she can compensate, that's an important skill."
Hermione expected the tryouts to wind down once everyone going out for the two open positions had faced off against Ron, but things didn't exactly work out that way. After a fifteen-minute break, Katie called everyone, including all of the current members of the team out on the field for an impromptu game. The teams were smaller than normal, comprised of one Beater a piece, two Chasers instead of the normal three, and a Keeper on each side. Ron obviously couldn't guard all six hoops on his own, and as they didn't really need a Seeker, Harry was recruited to defend the rings on one side of the field.
He balked at first, claiming that he didn't know how to Keep, but in the end he relented and he wasn't nearly as bad as he feared he'd be. His quick reflexes and fast broom helped, but even so, he was really only able to defend two of the three hoops most of the time. Not that it really matter all that much, since Katie was rotating different Chasers in and out of the game and had them switching teams so often that in the end, they went up against Ron just as often as they did Harry.
If only I'd brought one of those books from the Room of Requirement, she thought, after nearly thirty minutes of watching her friends play. At least then I wouldn't feel like I was wasting time just sitting here, she continued with a sigh, as she watched Jack Sloper swing his beaters bat at the lone Bludger that had been hurling across the field since the game started and nearly fall off his broom when he failed to connect.
But I promised Ron that I wouldn't. Although I didn't realize this was going to take all day when I made that promise. Still, I'm supposed to be supporting my friends, she reminded herself. Not that they really need it right now, of course. But after the game, Ginny's going to need someone to wait with her while the rest of the team discusses everything and Katie makes her decision.
So much for getting anything accomplished today. This game is liable to go on until dinner and then there will be a party for the people that are chosen. I'll have to put in an appearance there, especially if Ginny makes it. And as if that weren't enough, Ron and I have detention tonight, she thought with another sigh, so it looks like I won't get to go through the rest of those books on the Lànain until tomorrow.
....................
"Well?" Harry asked, as he followed after his best friend, who had unceremoniously shoved his way through the party raging in the Common Room and headed straight upstairs when he returned from the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
"Sorry mate," Ron replied, shaking his head back and forth slightly to let him know that they'd failed to get any useful information about Voldemort during their covert defense lesson with Tonks and Mad-Eye. "Hermione had a go at it like you suggested," he said, as they entered their empty dorm room. "She even played the 'I'm worried about my parents' card," he elaborated, "but Moody saw right through her. He laughed in her face actually, which hacked her off a bit," he added, smiling to himself as he sat down on the edge of his bed and used his toes to pry his shoes off. "Apparently she can use logic or anger to throw the Imperius off. She had a grand time telling him to go to hell every time he'd put her under and ask her to do something."
"What about Tonks?" Harry inquired. He'd known it was a long shot when he asked his friends to press the Order members for news about Voldemort during their detention. Even so, he'd spent the part two hours hoping that they might reveal something, even if it seemed insubstantial or irrelevant.
There had been a definite lack of news about Voldemort or any type of Death Eater activity in the Daily Prophet since the Muggle-borns were attacked. Harry, like Hermione, and nearly everyone else, suspected that the Minister of Magic was behind that. The problem was he'd stopped drinking Mrs. Weasley's 'special tea' and the dreams that he'd expected to return, hadn't. Not only that, he hadn't sensed what Voldemort was thinking or feeling since the beginning of the summer. Hermione suspected that Voldemort was purposely blocking him out of his mind, and that knowledge was more than a little unnerving. It wasn't that he liked to be connected to that monster, but he still wanted to know what he was doing and the fact that Voldemort appeared to be hiding it on purpose, worried Harry. Of course he was trying not to let that show.
"You could have come with us," Ron reminded him. "They tell you things that they won't tell us."
"That would have looked a bit odd, don't you think?" Harry asked. "Seeing as how I don't have detention. Besides," he added, in an attempt to change the subject and lighten the mood, "I wasn't the one looking for an excuse to duck out of the party. A party being held in honor of your sister I might add. Someone had to help Ginny celebrate the fact that she made it back on the team."
"Don't pretend you didn't see the way those two harpies zeroed in on us when we got back from the kitchen with the Butterbeer," the redhead retorted.
"They were just trying to help us," Harry argued. Ron had told him about Lavender and Parvati's little plan as soon as the Quidditch tryouts were over, but he still wasn't sure if he really believed it.
"Help themselves more likely. They were like a couple bloody vultures circling the room waiting for their next meal to arrive. If you want to be devour by Parvati, that's your business, mate. But you can count me out. "
"I can think of worse fates," Harry replied with a smirk.
"That's not the tune you were singing after the Yule Ball," Ron chuckled, as he stood up and pulled his shirt off over his head. "I seem to recall you saying something about ..."
"Oh we're going to talk about that, are we?" Harry laughed. "In that case there's something I've been meaning to ask you. What exactly did happen to your Viktor Krum figure? I've always been curious about that seeing as how I found one of his arms under my bed."
"Shut up," Ron groaned, throwing his shirt at his best friend's head.
"No seriously," Harry said with a snigger, as Ron's ears became progressively darker. "Did you tear him apart with your bare hands or did you--"
He would have continued to taunt Ron, if a knock on the bedroom door hadn't drawn their attention. Who could that be? Harry wondered, as he approached the door. Seamus and Neville wouldn't knock and everyone else is down at the party.
"I thought you went to bed?" Harry said, as he opened the door and stared down at Hermione in surprise.
"I did," she replied, brushing past him and sweeping into their room uninvited, "But I needed to see Ron for a second."
"What's the matter?" the redhead asked, as he removed his trousers without so much as a second thought and stalked over to his chest of drawers in nothing but his pants to retrieve a pair of pajamas. "Wait a minute," he sighed, slipping the bottoms on and turning around to face Hermione again "It isn't about the party is it?" he asked, "Because I already told you I wasn't going to break it up. Give 'em a break, will ya? It's not even that late."
"No," Hermione replied, completely missing the stunned expression on Harry's face. "It's not the party. I just wanted to give you these," she continued, holding her hand out in the air and opening her fist to reveal two small pills resting in her palm.
She's not embarrassed either, Harry realized, as he gaped at his friends with wide eyes. Neither of them is. Why should they be, he reminded himself, focusing on Ron, whose complexion was as fair as ever. If what Ginny said is really true they've seen each other starkers, he thought, glancing at Hermione again and blushing slightly, as the image of her wearing nothing at all and standing under a spray of water popped into his head.
You shouldn't be thinking about things like that, he scolded himself, forcing his eyes to the floor and fidgeting uncomfortably the instant he realized he'd been looking at her chest. She's practically your sister.
But she's not, a second voice piped in.
She might as well be, he argued with himself. I don't have those kind of feelings for her. Besides, she's dating my best friend. It's just that... it doesn't seem real. They act the same way they always did. She still nags and he still complains about it. If I hadn't seen them holding hands... I never would have suspected anything was different. Well, expect for the fact Ron just stripped in front of her. That's definitely different.
"What in the hell would I want those things for?" Ron asked loudly, drawing Harry from his own thoughts and reclaiming his attention.
"Just take them," Hermione sighed in exasperation, as the thrust the tablets at Ron, who was backing away from her.
"I'm not taking those ruddy pill things," he cried, staring at her hand warily.
"Honestly, Ron," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's not like I'm trying to poison you. They're just aspirin."
"What are you doing with aspirin?" Harry asked, clearly not sharing his best friends concern.
"I'm not going to bother Madam Pomfrey with something as trivial as a headache," Hermione replied, her eyes still focused on her retreating boyfriend. "I know you have one," she informed Ron. "I saw you wincing and rubbing your temples when Moody was finished working with you. My head hurts too," she added, "and I barely did anything tonight. Just take them. They'll help."
"I'll just sleep it off, thanks," he replied.
"Oh for heaven sakes. Will you tell him, Harry?"
"She's right," Harry agreed. "They do work. Muggles take them all the time."
"Yeah?" Ron asked sarcastically. "They also stitch themselves up like a pair of ripped trousers," he added. "But you'll never catch me doing anything as barmy as that."
"Fine. Go ahead and be stubborn about it," Hermione snapped, "but I'm leaving them here," she continued, stalking over to Ron's bed and setting the Muggle medication down on his bedside table. "See if you can get him to take them before he goes to sleep," she said to Harry, "or he'll be grouchy all day tomorrow."
"Wait, you're not leaving are you?" Ron asked, hurrying forward when she started moving towards the door.
"I'm tired and I know you are too," Hermione replied. "I'm going to turn in early. I'll see you both in the morning," she added, glancing over at Harry and giving him a brief smile.
"But," Ron protested, grabbing her hand and stilling her before she managed to open the door. "You don't have to go," he said softly. "We don't have classes tomorrow, so ... you know," he said, lowering his voice even further, "you can stay in here."
"I don't think that's a good idea," she replied uncomfortably.
"Why not?"
"Because we're prefects for one."
"So," Ron shot back quickly. "We were prefects last night and you slept in here. No one will know."
"Harry will know," she whispered, glancing over her shoulder at their other best friend, who was rummaging through his own chest of drawers and obviously had his back turned to them on purpose. Of course just because he wasn't watching them, didn't mean he couldn't hear them.
"Harry doesn't care," Ron replied. "Do you mate?"
"Um... no, not really," he lied, hoping that his discomfort wasn't too evident. But even as he spoke, he found himself wondering what exactly had happened between them the night before and the images that accompanied that thought made him feel even more awkward.
This is Hermione, he reminded himself. Proper, do everything by the rules, Prefect, Hermione.
Who spent the night in the boys' dorm with her boyfriend, the belligerent voice in the back of his head chimed in. They did more than just sleep in the same bed and you know it.
No, I don't, Harry argued with himself. And I don't want to know. What they do, or don't do, behind those curtains is none of my business.
Unfortunately the more he tried not to think about what they could have been doing, the stronger the mental images flashing through his mind became.
"I...er... I think I'm... uh... going to go back down to the party for a little while," Harry said, tossing his pajamas down on his bed.
"No Harry," Hermione protested, before he even had a chance to make it half way to the door. "You don't need to that. I'm going."
"Hermione," her boyfriend whined, as he shot her an imploring look.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she said firmly to Ron, before reaching for the doorknob.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" he asked, placing one hand on the door just to the left of her head and leaning forward so she wouldn't open it.
"Oh yeah. Good night Harry," Hermione said, without turning around.
"That's not what I meant," Ron chuckled softly, "and you know it."
"We already said goodnight," she reminded him, still facing the door.
"But I've seen you since then, so we'll have to do it again."
"You're impossible," Hermione groaned, biting her lip to keep from smiling when she spun around and saw him smirking at her. "Fine," she relented with a sigh, "Goodnight, Ron," she stated in an overdramatic manner, as she came up on her tiptoes and pecked him lightly on the cheek. "Take the aspirin," she whispered, placing one hand on his chest and pushing him away from the door and herself. "You'll feel better," she added, as she threw the door open.
"I'd feel better if I got a proper kiss," he whispered, after glancing into the hallway to make sure there was no one else around to accidentally overhear them.
"Looks like you're in for a rough night then," she informed him, as she slipped into the corridor and started walking back towards the stairs. "See you two in the morning."
"Aw well," Ron sighed, shrugging his shoulders as he shut the door and turned around to face Harry again. "It was worth a try."
....................
Ron hated Sundays. They were almost worse than Mondays in a way. Sure he could lie in if he wanted, but there wasn't really much point to that, seeing as how the instant he woke up he started dreading the rest of the day. He could hide in his bed for a while, but he couldn't put it off entirely. Eventually he was going to have to go downstairs and when he did, he'd have no choice but to start on his homework. After a nice long breakfast of course. Even Hermione couldn't expect him to work on an empty stomach.
Unfortunately breakfast never seemed to last long enough on Sundays. Especially when you had hour upon hour of tedious schoolwork to look forward to. Not that he didn't try and drag it out with second and even third helpings, but eventually even he had to stop eating and when he did, he knew that Hermione was going to pounce.
Sundays were her best day after all. It was the only day during the week when the Common Room was quiet and everyone was doing their homework. Unlike the rest of the student population, who had to buckle down and finally get to work on the assignments they'd been putting off all weekend, Hermione, who was always finished with her coursework early, was able to sit in a chair and read, or revise her work, to her hearts content.
Only this week rather than sit in the Common Room beside her friends, she opted to read somewhere else. Ron, of course knew what she was really doing, because she'd told him before she left. She was going to check on the potion, then she was going back to the Room of Requirement for a while, but she said she'd be back around noon. Noon came and went however, and Hermione never showed up.
Not that Ron was really all that worried. He knew that she often lost track of the time when she was reading, and he had more important problems to worry about. Like the fact that Lavender Brown had snuck into the room while he was preoccupied with his Transfiguration homework and had the audacity to ask him if he'd like to study with her, when he was clearly already studying with Harry.
His curt reply of, "No!" obviously hadn't been enough to put her off, because even after he disregarded her and refocused his attention back on his Transfiguration book, she continued to stand there for some unknown reason. In the end he had to get downright rude before she'd leave.
"Why are you still here?" Ron asked, when she failed to slink off as he expected. "Can't you see I'm busy?"
"Yes," Lavender replied, more than a little taken aback and clearly flustered. "But ...well... are you sure you don't want any help? Because I'd be glad to..."
"From you?" Ron interrupted with a snort. "That's rich," he laughed. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but I've been studying with the smartest witch in school for the past six years."
"Of course I've noticed," Lavender replied, clearly on edge now. "But she's not exactly here to help you, is she?"
"Why would I want you when I can study with her?" Ron retorted, loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear him.
"I... I just thought that...that..."
"Yeah well, there's your problem," he snapped, slamming his book shut as he did so.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lavender asked, narrowing her eyes and placing one hand on her hip. She wasn't exactly sure what he was insinuating, but she was fairly certain that she'd just been insulted.
"Why don't you go somewhere else and see if you can't figure it out?" Ron replied, glancing over at Harry who was seated on the sofa beside Neville shaking his head sadly. "Or not. I don't really care what you do, as long as you do it somewhere else."
"Damn Weasley!" Seamus hooted, after Lavender had turned around and stormed back over to Parvati, who'd been watching the exchange from across the room.
"What?" the young redhead replied, as he looked over at the sofa again and noticed that all three of his roommates were staring at him.
"That was rather rude, don't you think?" Neville asked.
"Even for you," Seamus added. "And that's saying something."
"She brought it on herself," Ron responded, shrugging his shoulders to show that he really didn't care if he'd hurt her feelings. "What part of the word 'no' didn't she understand?"
"You do realize that when a pretty girl asks you to study with her, she's usually interested in raising more than just your marks," Seamus said, arching his eyebrows suggestively and sniggering when Neville's face flooded with color. "That was a bit of an idiotic move if you ask me."
"Which I didn't," Ron shot back defensively. "Besides, she's 'studied' with a few too many blokes for my liking."
"Trust me, Weasley. That's not necessarily a bad thing," Seamus replied with a smirk. "I'd rather study with a girl that's been tutored up a bit and knows what she's doing than one that's never even cracked a book."
"She's all yours then," Ron said, as he shoved his Transfigurations homework aside and replaced it with his History of Magic text.
....................
I don't believe this, Hermione seethed, as she stormed back to Gryffindor Tower with a thin red book tucked under her arm. Why didn't he tell me? He had to know that I'd find out about it sooner or later. Of course he knew, she told herself, after giving the Fat lady the password and crossing into the Common Room. He was just hoping that it would be later rather than sooner. The overprotective jackass, she continued in her mind, as she scanned the room and spotted the ginger hair she was searching for.
You knew, Hermione thought, as she came up behind Ron, who sitting at a table by himself hunched over a sheet of parchment. "You knew and didn't tell me," she hissed, slamming the book she'd been carrying down right on top of his essay.
"Huh?" Ron yelped, jumping in surprise and spinning around to find his girlfriend glaring at him ominously. "What?" he asked, hoping to buy himself enough time to figure out what she was so hacked off about.
It couldn't be Lavender, he reasoned. I told her about that. SHITE! Just don't admit to anything until you know what you're admitting to.
"You knew," she repeated, her voice low and harsh.
"Knew what?" Ron asked, hoping that he didn't look as frightened as he felt. Hermione in a temper and shouting was one thing. Hermione in a temper and using a subdued voice was something else all together.
"That this," she said, pointing at the book she'd slammed down on his homework, "was only going to effect me."
"What?" he asked again, more confused than ever. That is until he glanced down at the book she was pointing at and noticed the title, Chained by the Bond- The Restraints of the Lànain Curse, printed on the cover. "Oh."
"Oh? That's all you have to say for yourself?"
"It's... uh... not a curse."
"Not for you it isn't," Hermione hissed. "But you failed to mention that part didn't you? And here I thought we'd be able to 'protect' each other, but that's not how it works, is it? You're the only one that will have any control. In fact you'll have all of the control and I'll pretty much be at your mercy."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Ron asked, both irritated and insulted by her insinuation that he'd mistreat her.
"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about," she spat back. "You'll be able to 'protect' me from other men, but it doesn't go both ways. You'll still be free to touch anyone you want."
"I don't want to touch anyone else," he whispered, his voice dripping with indignation."That's not the point."
"It's not?" Ron asked, furrowing his brow in confusion. "Er... ok. So why are you snarling at me then?""Because you still could."
"But I don't want to."
"Well, neither do I."
"That's not what I'm worried about," Ron protested in a hushed voice, "and you know it."
"Well you don't have to worry," she informed him matter of factly. "Because I can take care of myself."
"No Hermione, you can't."
"I most certainly can," she screeched, causing several heads to spin in their direction.
"What the hell are you looking at?" Ron growled at the onlookers, as he rose out of his chair, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and proceeded to glare at them until one by one they turned away. "We're going to finish this conversation upstairs," he snapped as he gathered his essay up, shoved it into the book Hermione brought back from the Room of Requirement, and tucked it under his arm before anyone else could see it. "Come on," he said, placing one hand on her back and pushing her forward.
For a split second the words, "You can't tell me what to do," hovered on the tip of her tongue and she considered staying right where she was. But there were far too many people in the Common Room and even though they were no longer watching, she knew that they were all listening now. She wanted to continue the 'conversation', so she swallowed her retort and followed Ron up the stairs.
As soon as she cleared the threshold of his dorm room and shut the door, Ron pointed his wand at it and shielded the room.
"Look Mione," he said, tossing his wand on his bed. "I know you think you can..."
"Don't you Mione me," she shouted, as she placed both of her hands on her hips. "And I don't think it. I know it.""And what about Malfoy?" he shot back, taking her by surprise.
"What about him?" Hermione asked, her brow creasing in confusion. "What does he have to do with anything?"
"You might have forgotten about what Malfoy did to you on the train, but I haven't," Ron snapped, clenching his fists at his sides as he remembered the way the pale Slytherin prefect had been taunting her about being captured.
"He didn't do anything," Hermione insisted. "I told you that. I made the whole thing up."
"BOLLOCKS!" Ron shouted. "He had you cornered, Hermione. You didn't even have you're bloody wand. If I hadn't walked in when I did there is no telling what might have happened."
"I would have kneed him in the groin, that's what would have happened."
"A surefire way to hack him off even more," he said with sigh. "Look, I know you think that you can take care of yourself but..."
"I can," Hermione insists, crossing her arms in front of her chest defiantly.
"Not on the bloody train, you couldn't," Ron persisted. "You were disarmed and at his mercy."
"I was NOT at his mercy," she retorted in a resentful tone of voice. "We were on a train full of people, for heaven sakes. All I had to do was scream and...."
"What if he had put a silencing charm on the compartment?" he shot back quickly.
"He didn't."
"But he could have," Ron insisted. "No one would have heard you scream then."
"This is pointless," Hermione sighed, throwing her hands up into the air in exasperation. "I'm not going to argue with you about something that didn't even happen."
"But it could have happened," Ron stated. "Because it's just that easy. You let your guard down for one second and that's all it took. And it wasn't just you," he added. "I did it too. I relaxed as soon as you were on the train, because there were Aurors and Order members around and I didn't think anything would happen to you. I shouldn't have let you go off on your own, but I did. If anything had happened it would have been my fault," he said miserably.
"I was the one that wasn't paying attention," Hermione confessed, as her anger started to wane.
"When you got away from them," Ron admitted, as he sat down on the side of his bed and dropped his eyes to the floor, "I swore to myself that I'd never let anything like that happen to you again. That I'd never let those bastards hurt you and I broke that promise almost as soon as we were out of the bloody house. You don't understand what it was like," he said, the pain he'd felt evident in his voice. "I was right there when they took you and I couldn't stop them. I tired, but I couldn't get to you in time. And I just kept thinking about the things they could be doing to you, because I... I failed you."
"No," Hermione insisted, as she sat down on the bed beside him and reached for one of his hands. " No you didn't."
"Yes, I did," he moaned miserably. "I failed you and Harry in the Department of Mysteries and I failed you again this summer. I was there this time. I was right there with you on Diagon Alley and I still couldn't stop them. I tried to get to you. I tried so hard," he muttered.
"I know," Hermione assured him, as she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him close. "I saw you and I knew that you'd make it through the crowd. That's why I did what I did. Because I wanted to protect you just as much as you wanted to save me."
"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Ron whispered into her hair as she hugged him. "I've never felt so helpless and I don't ever want to feel like that again. It didn't have to happen," he said, pulling back and locking his sorrowful blue eyes on hers. "Any of it. I could have prevented the whole thing if we'd only been...if we'd only done this Lànain thing sooner. Krum never would have been able to hold onto you. I could have forced him to let go, even with the crowd standing between us. You would have gotten away and none of it ever would have happened."
"You don't know that for sure," she said softly.
"I know that it will protect you."
"And what about you?" Hermione asked, as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
"What about me?"
"Who's going to protect you, Ron?"
"I don't need the same kind of protection," he stated. "Besides, most Death Eaters are men and the Lànain can only repel members of the opposite sex."
"Like Bellatrix Lestrange?" Hermione asked. "She enjoys toying with her victims before she finishes them off," she added, when Ron remained silent.
"But she isn't going to rape me," he said, fidgeting uncomfortably.
"She's a sick, twisted, bitch and I wouldn't put anything past her. You want to protect me. I understand that. But I want to protect you too."
"I don't matter," Ron said, dropping his head again.
"How can you say that?" Hermione asked, no longer trying to stem the flow of tears that were streaming down her cheeks. "You matter to me," she affirmed. "And you matter to Harry. You matter to your family," she continued. "We all love you, and I'm going to do whatever I can to keep you safe."
"Hermione, you can't."
"Why not?" she asked. "You have two charms."
"Because it doesn't work that way," Ron insisted.
"Just because it isn't normally done, doesn't mean it won't work," Hermione stated. "It's just a spell. I read it over carefully. It doesn't differentiate between the sexes. The gender of the person that ends up wearing the talisman doesn't matter. It's the magic and the blood that forges the bond. The talisman just amplifies it and sustain the connection. If you can put one on me, I can most certainly put one on you."
"But..." Ron stammered, "but, it's just not done. Men don't..."
"Don't what?" Hermione cut him off. "Relinquish control to their wives?"
"It's not that," he insisted. "It's just...it's..."
"Humiliating?" she finished quickly. "Degrading?"
"Yeah."
"And yet you expect me to agree to it?"
"It's not the same thing," Ron maintained.
"It is the same," Hermione insisted. "I'm not your property. I'm not some subservient little twit that's going to sit back and be controlled by her husband. Marriage is a partnership. We have to be equals or it won't work. I'll do it, but only if you agree to do it as well. That way I'll have just as much control over you as you do over me and we'll be on an equal footing."
"You're serious, aren't you?" he asked, scrutinizing her facial expressions closely.
"Yes, I am."
"All right," Ron said, after a moment of silence. "I... I'll do it."
"You can't do it just like that," Hermione protested. "You need to think about it first."
"No I don't," Ron replied, waving his hand in the air as if he were using it to brush her suggestion aside. "I don't care. It's not about control or ownership anyway. At least not as far as I'm concerned. And maybe it's better this way," he admitted, now that the shock had worn off a bit and he was able to process exactly what a dual bonding would signify. "I mean if you 'own' me as well, that will take some of the stigma off of it right? Because like you said, we'll be equals and there is nothing shameful about that. I mean sure, it's a little embarrassing," he continued to ramble, "and Fred and George will say I'm 'whipped'. They'll take the mickey out on me something fierce if they ever find out, but they do that anyway, so.... yeah, I'll do it. But... we're not... uh... really going to tell people, right?" he asked uncomfortably. "I mean we're not going to announce it or anything?"
"Absolutely not!"
"Are we going to tell anyone?"
"You mean Harry?" Hermione asked. "I don't know," she admitted, when Ron nodded his head in answer to his question. "What do you think?"
"Hey Harry, guess what?" Ron said, as if their best friend was standing in the room with them. "Hermione and I are going to perform the Lànain. Oh you've never heard of it?" he continued on as if Harry had replied. "Well I'm not surprised, seeing as how it's one of those nefarious practices created by pure-blood maniacs like You-Know-Who. But basically I'll take this charm that I nicked from Sirius, put it around Hermione's neck, and once I do that, she becomes my wife. Oh yeah," he snorted. "That ought to go over well."
"He's bound to be shocked," Hermione admitted, "but once we explain the protective aspects..."
"But what about the part where we're married?"
"I think we should tell him that part too," Hermione replied, after considering it for a moment. "He's our best friend. If we're really going to get married, I want him there. It just wouldn't be right if he wasn't a part of it. Do you know what I mean?"
"Definitely," Ron agreed. "So... uh... what about the potion? Do you want to tell him about that too?"
"No," Hermione stated so vehemently, that it took Ron by surprise. "I don't care if Voldemort knows that we're bound by the Lànain. It's inconsequential, because it's not part of the original plan. But he can't know about the potion or why we're taking it. We can't tell Harry about that until he's mastered Occlumency enough to consciously block out his thoughts. He needs to be able to control his emotions as well, or at least conceal them enough that Voldemort can't use them to figure out what is going on. We definitely can't tell Harry about the counter-curse yet. He's far too emotional."
"You can't blame him, Hermione," Ron said in his best friend's defense. "You'd be emotional too if..."
"I know," she said, cutting him off. "I didn't mean it as a criticism. I was just stating a fact."
"Yeah well, Snape's a condescending, vindictive, slimy, son of a bi..."
"RON!"
'Hey, it's a fact," he stated, before Hermione could admonish him any further. "Not even you can argue that point. He's had it in for Harry ever since he got here. The slimy git," he mumbled, under his breath. "You can't blame Harry for not wanting to spend anymore time than necessary with that..."
"Ron," Hermione said in warning, when she sensed the direction he was about to proceed.
"It's the truth," he protested.
"The truth is that it's also necessary for Harry to learn Occlumency."
"It doesn't matter how necessary it is," Ron informed her. "He's not going to grovel at Snape's feet."
"If he won't do it, I will," Hermione stated matter of factly.
"You can't," he shot back quickly. "If you do that, it'll just make things worse."
"How can they possibly be any worse than they already are?"