Chapter 23

Ron was patrolling outside of Harry's room, when The Boy Who Lived exited his sister's room.

Ron smirked at the sight and said in a rather Snape-ish voice. "Harry Potter! Where do you think you are going?"

"Ron! Don't do that! I thought you were not patrolling, since no letters have come in and everything?"

"Yes, well, just taking precautions."

Good one Weasly. Lie to your best friend.

What else could he do? Harry'd get all self-sacrificing and get himself killed. That was what the entire world needed! Really! The Wizarding World was just recovering from all the Voldemort-years and liked to look towards Harry like he was a strange icon of the picture-perfect life with loads of money, beautiful wife and a few little toddlers running around in the back yard. Truth be told - he was not. He did have loads of money but he was missing the toddlers and the wife. But if he kept sneaking into Ginnys room, he might just become a little too perfect.

"Harry, dear! Would you like to explain what you were doing in my little sisters room?" He smiled a pleasant smile to go with it.

"Well… I was kind of hoping to spare you the gross details, but if you insist…" Harry was obviously trying to fight back laughter.

Ron didn't think he was doing a very good job at it so he continued as if he were deaf. "Actually… You could have informed Hermione or me… We kind of hold ourselves responsible if something happens to you. What do you think?"

"Sorry. I just thought I'd spare you of the agony. You seemed mentally unstable that other night when you and Hermione HAPPPENED to…"

"I get the point! Were you in Ginny's room last night?" Ron just then acknowledged the fact that maybe The Untouchable went to Harry's room, but couldn't find him, so instead he went to Hermiones. Ron made a mental note to go see if she was okay after he was finished with interrogating Harry.

"Do you promise to fight the urge to kill me?"

" I am doing that as we speak and will take that as a yes." He swore under his breath and started pacing.

"Ron. What's wrong?" Harry had been friends with him too long not to notice that something was awfully out of place here.

"Nothing, nothing. Do you promise to go to sleep, to not exit this room?" Ron seemed rather worried as he pulled his hand through his red hair and looked Harry in the eye.

"No, not until you tell me what is the matter!" Harry was slightly irritated that his best friend didn't even trust him enough to tell him things that affected his own life.

"Will you just do it? I'm too worried about you and Ginny and Hermione at the moment to be having this stupid talk! Go to your room!" That sounded awfully motherly, but said everything he meant to say.

"Stop it! I want to know what's going on here and you are going to tell me!"

"The hell I am!" He turned round and started pacing again. Suddenly Harry's hand landed on his shoulder. "I think we are going to have to have a serious talk."

¤

Harry had practically dragged him down to the kitchen and was now making coffee, seeing as Ron's eyelids were drooping, now that he was in the warm kitchen instead of the airy corridor.

"Where would you like to start?" Harry asked him and Ron felt as if his insides were torn apart. He had two choices, one: tell Harry the truth and get it over with and two: lie. He chose the last one.

"I don't know what you are talking about." He answered simply and took a sip of his coffee.

"Ron there are about two things you are totally rubbish at in this fair world. One is showing your feelings towards Hermione and the other one is lying so why don't you just tell me what happened from the very moment you got here, okay?"

Ron sighed, took another sip of his coffee and began: "Well, I Apparated here from the office and as it turned out I was not the only one in the living room. Hermione had too, just arrived and we kind of arrived on each other. Then out came that butler of yours, he, by the way, seemed a little scared of us and went to get you… The story is going to be awful long, you sure you wanna hear it?" Ron was hoping harry was feeling tired and was willing to go off to bed.

"I've got all night." Harry smiled.

"Are you sure Gin won't miss you?" Last resort, Ron thought.

Harry burst out laughing. "Now I'm sure I want to hear it! A few days ago you almost took my head off for playing chess with her, now you're asking me if I am sure she isn't going to miss me?"

"I, on the other hand, am sure you did a bit more than play chess with her!" Ron growled at his best friend.

"No we didn't… if you don't want to tell me the whole story, juts skip to the part you two started lying to me!" The light mood was gone and Harry was glaring at him openly.

"We never lied to you, we just bended the arm of the truth a bit."

/----/

Ron tells Harry the story

/----/

"That's it. Now you are no longer kept in the dark about anything. Happy now?"

"Happier than I was not knowing. So let me get this straight…One of the people I know and trust within these walls, living, eating, sleeping and breathing here and possibly even getting paid to do it is a sick-minded freak?"

"For the fifth time: yes!" Ron rubbed the bridge of his nose and continued, feeling rather good that he now had someone else besides Hermione to share the secret with. Not that Hermione was bad at keeping secrets or anything, but they recently seemed to have all that tension between them.

" I am worried about 'Mione and Ginny, so I was thinking to get them to safety first thing tomorrow morning." Ron did look worried with dark circles under his eyes; but then again, they had been there before he arrived. He really did need to get outside more.

"… And when we've got them somewhere far and away from here, we can take on the slimy creature. What do you think?"

"Ginny –maybe, with a lot of persuasion, but Hermione…"

"I know, she can be stubborn, but we could always stupefy her…"

"And live in the process? I hardly think so."

"I'll talk to her, she has to listen to her boss…" Ron trailed away.

"You are her boss?" Harry had to have had a laughing cramp that very second.

"What?" Ron demanded. "So what?"

"And she actually takes orders from you? I mean…without cursing you or anything?"

"Well, yeah. Why is that so hard to believe?" Ron asked incredulously but Harry just kept laughing.

¤

A new morning dawned and a new day began in the house (mansion) of Harry Potter. Since they had just now turned in, Ron only changed his clothes and headed down to breakfast, full of determination to get Hermione and Ginny to safety, no matter what the costs. He whistled as he passed Hermiones door and banged his fist on the surface a few times, yelling 'rise and shine beautiful', not wanting to be the one to go in and wake her. He was not sure what he would do if she was wearing that little piece of clothing she called a night-gown again.

He arrived at the table where only Ginny and Harry were sitting, said 'good morning' to them and sat down, waiting mainly for Hermione. It was Colin who arrived next, looking a little beat and Justin a few minutes after him, perfectly ironed robes billowing behind him as he greeted them with a 'Good morning to everyone my friends!'

Ron actually had to admit that Justin had developed some humanity around him. Back in school he had always thought that the poor fellow was rather spineless and being spineless never got you on the 'nice, friendly and respectful people list' when speaking of Ron Weasly. For example Hermione. He had hated her when they first got to school and had grown to like her a lot. Okay…maybe it was more than like…he didn't dare to say love, he was ever very careful with that simple word. Not with family, no doubt he loved them, but with girls. With Hermione especially. She was his best friend after Harry, although he was not sure how he would introduce her if he was to present her to somebody. He would still say friend. They had never said anything about being more than friends and as much as he hated to admit it he was too afraid to even think of talking about it.

How did it just happen that he was thinking about Justin and ended up thinking about Hermione? That was utterly strange. He didn't want to overload his brain with more strange things than it already housed at the moment and there were plenty. He was to tell Hermione about their little plan and present it in a way she would accept and get her out of harms way. Harry would tell Ginny. His train of thoughts was so rudely stopped by the station manager Justin.

"Shall we begin? I believe Hermione is running late and I wouldn't wonder after those noises from Ron's room last night…" All of them laughed, but Ron.

Our redheaded hero hissed through his clenched teeth.

"Me. And. 'Mione. Did. Not. Spend. The. Night. In. My. Room!"

"Oh so it was her room?" Justin asked rather amused.

The guy was really starting to bug him and that was never a good sign. "On the contrary to what you might think, I never saw Hermione again after leaving the library."

Ron was staring straight at Justin, angry gleam in his eyes.

"Don't bother Sir," Niles cut in, "they obviously took care of the unfinished business in the library." He sent Ron a friendly smirk to go with it.

Ron looked at each and every one of them and thought it would just be easier to curse all of them and not bother with looking for the right loony. His ears felt like they were on fire and he almost felt his hand itching to grab his wand. He would not do it. He would patiently wait for the breakfast to end and then tell Hermione the plan. Thinking about Hermione, where was she anyway? She had slept late the other mornings, but never this much. He would go and wake her when the breakfast was over if she didn't turn up. Maybe she just didn't want to see Colin and Justin…and of course the rest of the bunch who would ruthlessly make fun of her and him and the library accident…

What had he been thinking? He had worked with other female agents before and it had never been a problem for him. He just did not, DID NOT mix business with pleasure. That was the policy he lived by but it didn't seem to work with Hermione. From the first time they had had a close contact…which happened to be in the first five seconds he entered the house…he had not been able to think straight. If, in normal circumstances, meaning with anyone else, he would have thought that the situation was embarrassing, then with Hermione… His first thought had been: I want to kiss her. Was that normal?

His other part of the brain answered him: Yes Ron that is normal, especially when you have been in love with her since god knows when!

No! Me and 'Mione are friends.

Ron finished his coffee and looked up to see that he was alone, sitting at the table with a pot of coffee and nothing else. He wondered if he seemed a bit out of his normal self. No. He probably looked slightly insane.

He took his unfinished coffee with him and headed towards the stairs with every intention to act cool and professional whilst waking up his FRIEND who happened to look too sexy in an overly short night-gown. He climbed the stairs and reached her room. He knocked softly. "Hermione? Are you up?"

No answer.

"Hermione? Breakfast's ready!"

Nothing. It was as if he was talking to himself.

"Hermione! We're late and we've got Potions first!" He yelled.

Everything was silent. Ron decided that something had to be wrong. Being late for double Potions would have woken up the dead so if she was still drifting somewhere in between of dream world and reality she had to be seriously jaded or crazy.

Ron pushed the door open and walked in. Her bed was made; the room was as tidy as ever with the only remotely untidy thing being her night -gown tossed carelessly on the bed. The bed had either never been slept in or had been made early. He called out her name once more and then hurried downstairs to the library. She probably just wanted some early work done and forgot herself with the letters.

The library was as Ron had left it from the previous night, not a thing had been moved. He flicked his wand and muttered something under his breath sending up a brilliant ball light.

If he had been worried before then now, he was panicking and looking around frantically, hoping to find her in impossible places like under the table and on the mantelpiece. He decided to keep his head cool and think about it. Where could she be? A terrible suspicion rose in the back of his mind, but he decided to ignore it and ran to find Harry.

Ron found him on the second floor, in his sister's room, talking to her. She nodded her head and hugged him wordlessly. Then the both of them noticed him, standing in the doorway.

" It's Hermione. She's gone. " Ron panted out.

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A/N: Reviews are greatly appreciated.