Chapter 59
"You're cheating," Ron grumbled with indignation as he watched Hermione reach for her Knight, then abruptly change her mind and castle her King with her Queen's side Rook instead.
"I beg to differ," she stated, looking up at Ron once she'd finished swapping the positions of both her pieces and smiling at him. "I've seen you use this move plenty of times."
"That's not what I'm talking about," Ron complained. "You knew what I was planning," he said in an accusatory manner. "And that's why you moved your King instead. Because you're cheating."
"I am not," Hermione insisted. "Reading your opponent is part of the game."
"Their body language, not their mind," he said accusingly.
"I'm not reading your mind," Hermione countered, still smiling and clearly enjoying herself. "Just your feelings. It's not my fault you get all excited every time you see me about to make a move you consider a mistake."
"That is soooo not fair," Ron moaned, flopping back against his chair and glowering at his chess pieces as if they were responsible for revealing his plans to her instead of him.
"Sure it is," she chuckled. "You can read me the same way I can read you. That makes it fair."
"The difference being, I don't make mistakes when it comes to chess," he groused.
Not keeping your emotions in check while we play seems like a mistake to me, Hermione thought with quite a bit of satisfaction. A mistake I was counting on actually, she continued in her head, hence the bet. But she decided there was no reason to admit that fact out loud, as he'd obviously figured it out on his own. Then again, what was the fun of beating Ron at chess if she couldn't rub it in just a little? "Then why haven't you beaten me yet?" she countered with a smirk.
"Because you're CHEATING!"
"You're just bent out of shape because you know that you're going to have to start your essay," Hermione retorted. "Honestly, if you put half as much effort into doing your schoolwork as you do trying to get out of it, you'd already be finished and it wouldn't be an issue."
"This game is not over yet," Ron said, pulling himself together and studying the board in hopes of formulating a new plan of attack, one he was bound and determined NOT to reveal to her via their connection. He'd just concentrate on being irritated no matter what move he spotted and let her try and read him through that for a while.
But almost as soon as he devised a new strategy, the portrait hole swung open and Ron forgot all about his resolution. All the irritation he'd been feeling went right out the window when he spied the girl clutching his best friend's arm. It was replaced with both shock and horror when she leaned forward and kissed Harry on the cheek, before dashing off towards the stairs leading up to the girls' dorms.
"What is it?" Hermione asked, sensing Ron's bewilderment and spinning around in her chair to see what he was gawking at, only to spy Harry standing by the portrait hole, his eyes locked on Ron's and his face beet red.
"She just...," Ron sputtered as he stood up and pointed at Harry over Hermione's shoulder, "and then she just ran off..." he stammered, swinging his finger towards the now empty stairwell, "...and...and... Bloody hell!" he said as their best mate hurried over, a panicked expression on his face.
"Will you shut up," Harry hissed the instant he was within range.
"Something you want to tell us?" Ron asked, abandoning his attempt to explain things to Hermione and pulling himself together enough to formulate a coherent sentence.
"No, not especially," Harry replied, glancing around the room nervously. Not here anyway, he added in his head.
"That's funny," Ron countered, "because I could have sworn she just kissed you."
"Who?" Hermione asked in surprise, scanning the room herself.
"Parvati Patil!" Seamus cried gleefully as he scurried towards the trio. "You sly dog. Why didn't you tell us that you and Parvati were having it off?"
"Because we're not!" Harry insisted, his face even redder now than it had been before, which was saying quite a lot. "So shut up about it already. I think there may be a couple kids over in the corner that haven't heard you yet."
"Parvati?" Hermione said, her eyes jumping from Harry, to Ron, who was able to confirm it without so much as nodding his head.
He wasn't quite as appalled by the idea as Hermione was, but he wasn't exactly happy about it either, although to his credit he was trying to keep that to himself.
"You're barking if you think you're going to be able to keep a lid on this," Seamus chortled. "In case you hadn't noticed, Potter, that was Parvati Patil who just kissed you and when she was finished, she ran that way," he said, pointing towards the girls' dorms, "to find Lavender Brown. There won't be a girl in those dorms that doesn't know every detail of what happened within the next ten minutes, so you may as well spill your guts as well. Soooo," Seamus said, rubbing his hands together excitedly. "What exactly did happen?" he asked, arching one eyebrow suggestively.
"Wait," Hermione said, taking everything Seamus said in and jumping several steps ahead of everyone else. "You didn't ask her to go to Hogsmeade, did you?"
"WHAT!" Harry asked, his mouth dropping open in surprise. Why in the world would she think I'd do something like that? he wondered, and then it dawned on him, Of course. They're a couple now, which means they'll probably want to go to Hogsmeade on their own and do couple things.
"What's Hogsmeade got to do with any of this?" Ron asked, the agitation he was feeling kicking up several notches because even as he was asking, he realized what Hermione was about to do.
ARE YOU MENTAL! he cried in his head, knowing that Hermione couldn't hear his thoughts, but that she'd pick up on what he was feeling just the same. You can't tell him that he's not allowed to go NOW! You have to wait until he's in just the right mood and... oh, right. If he really did just spend the past hour snogging he ought to be in a pretty good mood, but still...
"Just because they snogged doesn't mean Harry wants to ask her out," Ron said out of the blue. "Why are you just assuming that..."
"You can't just snog a girl and then pretend that it never happened," Hermione countered before he even finished the rest of his statement, spinning around and focusing her full attention on Ron.
"Why not?" Seamus asked, echoing what both Ron and Harry were thinking.
"OH FOR HEAVEN SAKES!" Hermione shouted, indignation coursing through her body and directly into Ron's, which was fairly odd for him seeing as how he agreed with Seamus for the most part. "And you wonder why it is that no self-respecting girl would be caught dead with you."
"HEY!" Seamus barked, clearly insulted. "That not true," he added almost as an afterthought. "Is it?"
"Not that it matters in this case," Hermione continued, totally disregarding Seamus now that she was in full on know-it-all mode and refocusing her attention on Harry, who was about to be on the receiving end of her lecture. "I'm sure you would never treat a girl that callously, but even so, you can't ask Parvati, or anyone else, to go to Hogsmeade with you..."
"Hermione," Ron tried to interrupt, but if she heard him, she didn't acknowledge it.
"... because you're not even allowed to go," she finished.
"WHAT!" Harry shouted, when her words sunk in. "Says who?"
"McGonagall," Ron answered quickly, jumping to Hermione's defense before she had a chance to incriminate herself. Technically it was true. It might have been Hermione's idea, but ultimately it was McGonagall's decision.
"WHY THE HELL NOT?" Harry yelled, becoming angrier by the second.
"Oh, I don't know," Hermione, who was now in a spectacularly bad mood herself, retorted sarcastically. "Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Voldemort is after you. And will you please STOP FLINCHING!" she shouted not only at Ron, but at Seamus, who had sucked in a deep breath and taken a step away from her. "It's just a name like any other. It's not like he's going to materialize in the middle of the room if I say it out loud. Voldemort. Voldemort! VOLDEMORT!" she said, her voice getting progressively louder so that by the last time she uttered his name, every person in the eerily silent common room was gaping at her. "Oh, forget it," she snapped. "You explain why we can't go. I'm going to bed," she said to Ron, before spinning around and stomping past the stunned onlookers towards the girls' stairwell.
BREAKBREAKBREAK
"Could we please slow down a bit," David complained as he followed after Ginny, who was storming down yet another corridor on the first floor, flinging classroom doors open at random. "It's fairly late," he continued, watching her pop her head into the Muggle Studies room, only to do a cursory search, then pull back and heave the door shut. "We're not likely to find anyone else now, especially with all the noise you're making," he added. "Unless you count Filch, because we're close enough to his office now that he's liable to hear you."
"So bloody what?" Ginny snapped, instantly feeling bad for taking her bad mood out on David. He didn't deserve to bear the brunt of her anger. He hadn't done anything wrong.
And neither did Harry, she reminded herself for what felt like the hundredth time since she'd walked away from him, not that it did much good. It wasn't even Harry she was really angry at anymore, it was herself. She was the one that had just made a complete and utter fool out of herself after all.
It's not like I have any kind of claim on him, she scolded herself. He doesn't owe me anything. He's free to be with anyone he wants. Even that gossip-mongering bint. It's none of my business who he snogs.
Ok, so you didn't expect it to hurt that much but... but did you really have to pitch a fit?
What he must think of me now? All that time I spent trying to convince myself, and everyone else, that I was over him and for what? So I could blow up the instant I saw him with another girl. MY GOD! Could I have been any MORE obvious? I might as well charm a flashing sign on my back that reads, 'I still fancy Harry Potter', and prance around the common room wearing it.
Why, WHY, WHY, didn't I just keep my big mouth shut and let David handle it? But I just had to blow up and make it obvious that I still have feelings for him. Not only does Harry know now, Parvati does too, which means the entire school will know by this time tomorrow. It's going to be like the bloody singing valentine incident all over again. Stupid. Stupid. STUPID! That's what I am.
"There goes Mrs. Norris," David said, pointing at the tail end of the cat that had just leapt out of nowhere in front of them and darted behind one of the tapestries that lined the wall, no doubt to retrieve her master.
"So?" Ginny replied, shrugging her shoulders as if she didn't care. "It's not like Filch can punish us for doing our job," she said to her fellow prefect, as she glanced into yet another empty classroom, "And that's all we're doing."
"Speaking of which," David said, noting that at least some of what he said must have sunk in because she was no longer slamming the doors as she exited the rooms, "Are you seriously going to turn Potter and his friend into McGonagall, or were you just saying that to scare them? Because if you were trying to scare them, you did."
"They deserve it," she replied tersely, although what she really meant was she deserves it. She being that superficial, gold digging, trollop Harry had been snogging.
What in the world was he thinking? she asked herself yet again. Is that really the kind of girl he wants? Someone that's more interested in his reputation than she is him? A shameless hussy that will throw herself at him, bat her eyelashes, and giggle at every inane thing he says in an effort to stroke his ego?"
Bet that's not all she stroked, a little voice chimed in from the back of her head, forcing her to admit to herself why it was that his trousers had been unbuttoned. That complete and utter slag. She took advantage of him, I'd be willing to wager on it. She knew that he was clueless and used that to her advantage.
"So you are going to tell McGonagall then?" David asked. "Because if you are, we'll need to get our stories straight and all."
"What?" Ginny asked, coming back a bit, but still not paying all that much attention.
"Our explanation about what happened. You know, the reason you gave them detentions," David replied. "Are you going to tell her it was because we caught them out after curfew or are you going to mention what they were doing? She's going to ask me about it too you know?" he added, when Ginny didn't reply. "I'm going to need to know what it is you want me to tell her. Ginny," he said, his voice getting louder in an effort to regain her attention. "Are you even listening to me?"
"Of course I am," she lied.
"So what are we going to tell her?"
"Nothing," Ginny replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"But... you just said that..."
"Yes, well, I've changed my mind," she said matter-of-factly, moving ahead of him again as they continued to walk down the corridor so she wouldn't have to see the disbelieving look he was shooting in her direction.
What was there for David not to understand? He'd said it himself when they were in the Room of Requirement. Harry is her brother's best friend. He's practically family and the Weasleys look after their own, even when they're annoyed with one another. So as much as she'd love to knock Parvati off her high horse and saddle her with a detention, there was no way she could do it without dragging Harry into it and getting him in trouble as well.
"So we're not going to tell McGonagall then?" David asked.
"Not unless you want to."
"Me?" David asked in surprise. "Why would I want to do something like that? Potter's never done anything to me and he has enough on his plate to deal with without us adding to it."
"Well, that's that then," Ginny said, more to herself than to David, although she wasn't really talking about the detention any longer.
If Harry wants to waste his time running around with that cheap tart, it's his business. There's nothing I can say or do about it. I just have to suck it up and pretend that it doesn't bother me. No point pining away for him. It's never going to happen. I just need to accept it already and move on.
"Say, David," Ginny said, coming to a full stop and spinning around to face her fellow prefect. "Do you have any plans for Hogsmeade yet? Before we start our patrol I mean. Because if you don't, I thought maybe you'd like to meet up at the Three Broomsticks or something. Maybe get a butterbeer before we start."
"You mean like a date?" he asked, clearly taken by surprise.
"It doesn't necessarily have to be a date," Ginny replied, her ears heating up significantly, but hidden from view by her long red hair. "Unless you feel inclined to pay," she added, the heat spreading to her cheeks. "I just thought it would be easier to meet up before we started our patrols, you know?"
"Yeah?" David said, unable to keep from smiling. "Yeah, it is a good idea, actually. We don't actually start our shift until one, so how about we meet at noon?" he asked uncertainly. "Is that too early? Because if there's some other place you need to go first..."
"Noon works for me," Ginny replied.
"So it's a date then?"
"Yeah, okay," Ginny said, her eyes now glued on her shoes. "Er..." she said somewhat uncomfortably, not sure how to proceed now that the Hogsmeade situation had been settled, "...we... um...better get going," she finally finished. "We still have two more floors to get through before we're done."
"Unless we split up," David suggested, obviously feeling the awkwardness himself. "You do the ground floor and I'll take the dungeons," he said. "We can meet in the entrance hall when we're finished and go back up to the tower together."
"Yeah, ok," Ginny agreed, relieved that the pressure she was now feeling to put on a happy face and sustain a pleasant conversation with her soon to be date, had just been released. With the two of them separating, she wouldn't have to concentrate on making small talk, she'd be free to mope and belittle herself for her own stupidity all she wanted. At least for the next half-hour or so.
"Right," David said, after the two of them had reached the marble staircase and started to descend to the ground floor. "Well, I'll meet you back here then," he said, when they reached the bottom and before Ginny had a chance to do more than nod her head, he turned to the right and continued down the stairwell that would take him to the dungeons.
BREAKBREAKBREAK
Hermione wasn't all that surprised to find her dorm room vacant when she stormed into it. If the giggles emitting from the room down the hall were any indication, that's where her roommates were. Big surprise, she thought, slamming the door shut behind herself and allowing the aggravation she was feeling to kick up another notch. Already off gossiping about it, she fumed, stomping her way to her own bed and sagging down on top of it. If they know what's good for them they'll stay out there, she thought, glowering at the door, because even closed, it didn't create a sufficient barrier to block out the squeals of the faceless teenage girls that were on the other side gushing over the details her best friend's love life.
"You all think this is just some big game," she muttered under her breath, pulling her wand out of her pocket and using it to cast a silencing charm on the door in an effort to quash the offensive noise. "Idiots."
What was Harry thinking? she asked herself, flopping over on her back and staring up at the thick canopy above her bed. It would be different if he actually fancied her, at least then I could understand taking that kind of risk, but he doesn't. Is it possible that he's actually thick enough to believe that no one was going to find out? Of course they're going to find out. She's the biggest gossip in our year, for Merlin sakes, and she's only interested in him for the bragging rights to begin with. Oh Harry, why is it you always have to jump in headfirst without thinking about the consequences? Would it really kill you to take five minutes and...
"...you really don't think he'll mind us doubling?" Hermione heard Lavender ask as the door opened and the blonde walked into the room, followed by her best friend.
DAMN! Hermione swore in her head. She'd shielded the door, but she hadn't bothered to lock it.
"Because Ethan is a seventh year and he's a Hufflepuff," Lavender continued, not even bothering to glance in Hermione's direction, "which means Harry isn't likely to know him. It will be our first date and I'd feel better about it knowing that you were there, you know?" she added, "just incase it doesn't work out. But it'll be your first real date with Harry too and I don't want to ruin that, so if you think he'll mind..."
"I don't see why he should," Parvati replied, walking over to her nightstand, picking up a brush, and running it through her already sleek hair. "We're only talking about a couple of butterbeers with friends, right?" she said. "It's not like it's going to take up the whole day. I mean either you'll hit it off with Ethan or you won't. HEY! I know," she said excitedly, tossing her brush on her bed and spinning around to face her best friend with a huge smile on her face. "We'll just invite Hermione and Ron. They're a couple now, plus they're friends with Harry. I'm sure that would..."
"Hermione and Ron don't appreciate the fact that you're attempting to use them as a bargaining chip to manipulate their best friend," Hermione said rather scathingly from her bed, instantly drawing both girls' attention. "And even if the invitation were genuine," she added as she sat upright once more, "and not part of another scheme, they'd still decline."
"It's not like that," Lavender said, clearly taken aback and surprise to discover that Hermione had been in the room since before they entered.
"No, really," Parvati insisted, when Hermione snorted. "You misunderstood what I was saying."
"No, I don't think I did," Hermione retorted, sounding even more offended now that her intelligence had been called into question. "And just so you know," she shot back tetchily, "Harry isn't going to appreciate you trying to make plans for him anymore than I do. Besides, you're wasting your time. Harry isn't going to ask you to Hogsmeade. He isn't even going."
"What?" Parvati asked, her face falling.
"Of course he is," Lavender insisted. "Why wouldn't he go?"
"Well for starters, Professor McGonagall rescinded his permission."
BREAKBREAKBREAK
It took less than five minutes for the minor disagreement between roommates to somehow escalated into a full on brawl, and much to the chagrin of the male population of Gryffindor Tower, or those that had still been in the common room when the shouting began, the two on one cat fight broke out in the only part of the tower they couldn't access. But just because they couldn't see the girls, didn't mean they couldn't hear them or imagine what was going on. Those that hadn't scurried off to collect their friends, were congregating around the foot of the stairwell leading up to the girls' dormitories when the Gryffindor prefects returned from their rounds.
The occupants in the 6th year boys' dorm however, were still peacefully unaware of the commotion, with the possible exception of Ron, who had sensed Hermione's irritation give way to genuine anger, but had quickly explained it away as a simple escalation in her bad mood and opted to try and tune it out for several reasons. The chief one being that he was trying to remain focused on Harry, who still hadn't shown much of a reaction to the explanation of why neither he, nor his friends, were going to be allowed to visit Hogsmeade anytime soon.
That all changed however, when there was an abrupt knock on the door and David Devane, popped his head inside looking for his fellow prefect.
"Oy, Weasley," he said, spying Ron sitting on the edge of his bed directly across from Harry, who had already changed into his pajamas and was lying on his own bed. "Just thought you two might like to know that your girlfriends are having themselves one hell of a row up in the girls' dorm. Ginny went up to try and put a stop to it but..."
"Damn it, Hermione!" Ron grumbled loudly, jumping to his feet.
"Come on," Seamus said, all but pushing Neville towards the door. "This is too good to miss."
BREAKBREAKBREAK
"...just because you're jealous that he finds Parvati more attractive than he does you," Ginny heard Lavender Brown's voice carry down the stairwell as she shoved several boys out of her way so she could get by.
"OH, FOR HEAVEN SAKES!" she heard Hermione screech, as she finally made it to the foot of the stairs and bolted up them. "Even you two can't be that daft."
"It's not enough that you have Ron all to yourself," Lavender shouted, "Now you want Harry too."
"That's right," Ginny heard Parvati agree as she hurried down the corridor filled with girls who were listening to the argument. "You made your choice!"
"THAT'S RIGHT, I DID!" Hermione bellowed, "AND STOP TRYING TO TURN IT INTO SOMETHING THAT IT ISN'T. Contrary to what you might think," she added, lowering her voice just a bit, yet somehow managing to make it even more menacing in the process, "Ron isn't some sort of consolation prize. He isn't the runner up in some warped contest for my affections. I'm with him because he IS the one I want! But that doesn't mean that I don't care about Harry or that I'm going to sit back and watch you toy with him just because you can."
"It's none of your business what I do with Harry, so JUST BUTT OUT!" Parvati shouted just before Ginny made it to the open doorway of the 6th years' room.
"I MOST CERTAINLY WILL NOT!" Hermione screeched at the top of her lungs. "Harry is my friend and if you think I'm going to sit back and watch you parade him around like some trophy you just won, you've got another thing coming. He's a person with feelings and if you hurt them, you're going to answer to me," she stated, yanking her hand off her hip and jabbing her finger in Parvati's face. "YOU GOT THAT!" she shrieked, raising her voice again because some idiotic boy had apparently tried to get into the girls' dorm and the staircase was now wailing loudly.
"That's enough," a deep voice called out behind Ginny, causing her, and many of the girls who were standing in the doorways of their own rooms, to jump and spin around in astonishment. It took a few seconds for the realization that a boy actually had made it up the stairs to sink in, even as they watched him stalk down the hallway. When it finally did click, there was a chorus of screeches, as many of the girls realized they weren't wearing anything but their night clothes, followed by a flurry of door slamming as they all ducked for cover in their rooms.
"How did you..." Ginny started to ask her brother, once she managed to pick her jaw up off the floor.
"HERMIONE!" Ron yelled over the continued wailing of the staircase, but either she didn't recognize the voice as belonging to him, or she didn't care that he'd somehow discovered a way to beat the stairs, because she continued with her rant without so much as acknowledging his presence.
"If you think this is some kind of game you're wrong. DEAD WRONG!"
Lavender and Parvati did notice however, and both of them gaped openly at Ron as he swept into their bedroom without invitation.
"You think you won a prize tonight," Hermione said to Parvati, "but all you managed to do was turn yourself into a..."
"That's enough," Ron said forcefully, latching onto Hermione's arm and pulling her away from her stunned dorm mates. "Do you want Harry to hear you?" he asked. "Do you really think that's going to make things any better? What are you doing?"
"She needs to know," Hermione replied, pointing her finger at Parvati. "And so what if Harry can hear me. He obviously needs the reminder."
"Not like this, he doesn't," Ron countered. "All you're going to do is make things worse, so shut up already."
"Don't you tell me to shut up!" Hermione yelled, redirecting the full force of her anger at him. "It's my room. I'll say whatever I want to in...how did you get up here?" she asked, after stopping mid rant and gaping at Ron in amazement when she finally realized just how wrong it was for him to be standing in middle of her room.
"I don't know," he replied honestly, his ears flushing significantly. "The stairs were a bit slow on the uptake tonight. They didn't collapse until Harry realized I'd made it to the top and tried to follow me."
"Harry tried to come up?" Parvati asked, before locking eyes with Lavender, who looked like she was trying to stifle a giggle.
Not for a snog you dizzy cow,Ginny thought, as she stepped into the room and shut the door behind herself. "Hermione isn't the only one that looks after her friends," she said, referring both to Harry's reason for trying to get upstairs, as well as her own reason for butting in.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lavender asked defensively.
"You have a brain," Ginny retorted, "Work it out on your own."
"Obviously they don't," Hermione said with a sigh, "Parvati doesn't have a clue about what it is she's done to herself."
"What are you talking about?" Parvati asked, her dark eyes jumping from the two girls to Ron, who was shaking his head in exasperation. "I haven't DONE anything."
"Yes you have," Ginny piped in. "You've turned yourself into a target."
"A target?" Parvati asked, narrowing her eyes at Ginny as she spoke. "You mean just because some girls might be jealous?"
"How can you possibly be that thick?" Hermione exclaimed loudly. "You there the day they attacked Diagon Alley. You saw what happened."
"Hermione," Ron said in a pained voice, but yet again, she ignored him.
"Why do you think they took me in the first place?" she pressed on, not even stopping long enough to allow Parvati to answer. "Because they knew that I was close to Harry. Because just like the two of you, they were stupid enough to believe everything Rita Skeeter wrote."
"What's that have to do with anything?" Lavender asked, her brow wrinkling up in confusion.
"They thought Hermione was Harry's girlfriend," Ginny replied almost instantly. "They wanted to use her to get to him."
"They wanted to use me as bait to draw him out," Hermione corrected. "And when they found out that Harry and I were nothing more than friends, Bellatrix Lestrange..."
"STOP IT!" Ron shouted, not wanting to hear anymore. But even though his outburst cut off Hermione's words, images of the things he'd seen in Dumbledore's pensive kept playing over in his mind.
The way Hermione had screamed. The way that twisted bitch had laughed as Hermione withered around on the floor in pain. The ways she'd endured that blasted curse just to protect him. How she'd tried to goad Bellatrix into killing her in an attempt to end her suffering because she didn't think she could take much more. Ron didn't want to remember those things. He didn't want to see them in his mind. He hated that Hermione had been put in that position; that he hadn't been able to save her. Thinking about it made him feel weak and helpless and angry.
"It wasn't your fault," Hermione said, sensing exactly what it was Ron was feeling and reaching out to reassure him. "It didn't happen because of you and there was nothing that you could do. But she needs to know. She needs to know so it doesn't happen to her too."
"What are you talking about?" Lavender asked.
"They tortured her," Ginny replied somberly, "with the Cruciatus Curse. Because she was close to Harry and by hurting her, they were in effect hurting him. Five times and she still wouldn't give them Cho's name. It took the Imperius Curse to drag that out of her and even that wasn't enough to get a truly accurate answer. How long do you think you'll be able to stand up to them; to that?"
"How do you..." Ron started to ask his sister, but Hermione replied before he even had a chance to finish.
"Because I told her," she said, before turning around to face Parvati again. "And now I'm telling you. Being close to Harry, having him care about you, that comes at a price. Harry is great and I love him, but it's not all fun and games. If you really want to be close to him, you have to be willing to accept that. You'll have to be willing to make sacrifices, like not going into Hogsmeade for instance, and you have to do it without making it seem like it's a burden. If that's not something you're willing to do, you need to back off now, before one of you gets hurt."
"What is the meaning of all this racket?" Professor McGonagall said sternly as she threw open the door and swept into the room, her tartan dressing gown fluttering behind her. "Ms. Granger I'm surprise that you would participate in, let alone instigate somethi..." she started to say, but cut off abruptly when her eyes jumped from the girls she was about to berate to the tall redhead standing amongst them. "MR. WEASLEY!" she cried in surprise, before her mouth snapped shut and her lips pursed. "Unless I am quite mistaken this is the girls' dormitory. You will remove yourself this instant and wait for me downstairs."
"Yes, Professor," Ron replied, dropping his head and scurrying for the door as soon as he saw her disbelief give way to outrage, outrage that was now directed at him. The truth was he couldn't get out of the room fast enough. No way in hell was he going to stand around or make matters worse on himself or Hermione by arguing with McGonagall. He'd just have to wait downstairs as she instructed and pray that she at least gave him a chance to explain himself before she started doling out punishments. In the meantime he had to come up with an explanation and quick, because 'I don't know, the stairs let me up so I kept climbing,' probably wasn't going to cut it.