Hi, all! Hopefully this is turning out better this time around?
Warnings: Same as last chapter: AU-ish, some OOC, obscure use of copyrights, ect. Ron-abuse.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Apophysis, or Acorna. The Suggestion Spells, the Insinuating Incantation, the Elixir of Enticement, and the Meandering Mixture ideas are all mine, too, so please ask if you want to borrow them.
Two months later
Sighing, I stumped into the library, tossed my bag down by Harry and Hermione, then flopped heavily into a chair. Most of the chairs around Hogwarts could afford to be flopped into. Some would wobble dangerously, but most would hold up well enough. Unfortunately, the chair was one of those few particularly spindly and not-very-sturdy models that the library kept at the most out-of-the-way tables. As such, it usually isn't a good idea to flop, or do anything but settle gingerly, into one of them. There was a loud crack, and I was sitting on the floor, amidst the remains of the fragile chair.
Harry snickered; Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Honestly!" she whispered as I disentangled myself from the mass of splintered chair. She waved her wand, and the unfortunate piece of furniture flew back together.
"How come you're so good at nonverbal spells, anyway?" I muttered, pulling a large sliver of the chair out from the hem of my robes.
"You would be, too, if you lived with Muggles."
It was at this moment Madam Pince arrived, and began screeching at me, reprimanding me for making noise and breaking the chair. Then, she proceeded to throw us all from the library's premises, much to Hermione's dismay.
"Well done, Ron." she snapped, picking up the various belongings that had been tossed after her.
"It was an accident! Ruddy old bat..." I snarled to myself, beginning to pick up my own things. Fortunately, they had all still been in my bag, and therefore weren't scattered all over, as Hermione's and Harry's were. However, the cloth had torn a little, and one of my ink bottles had come smashing out, and was now spreading a blackberry-colored stain across the stone floor of the corridor. Irritated, I pulled out my wand, muttering "reparo" and then "scourgify". Carefully, I placed the ink back in my bag, pretending not to notice the faint purplish shadow remaining on the stone.
The Fat Lady was pretending to doze when we arrived at the portrait hole about ten minutes later. "Apophysis," Hermione said loudly. The Fat Lady snorted unconvincingly, still feigning sleep. A few more fruitless attempts that steadily became louder, I started yelling at the portrait, too. I wasn't in the mood to stand around all night.
Finally, when Harry joined in the shouted, the Fat Lady gave up the charade. "Fine," she sniffed waspishly, snapping open and nearly smashing me against the stone wall.
While Hermione fumed about 'idiot portraits' (apparently, she'd had a bad day; she was usually rather tolerant of the Fat Lady), I looked for a table large enough to spread all of our things on. Fortunately, the big one nearest the door was occupied only by a diminutive first year girl. She took one look at Hermione, made a small squeaking sound, and quickly vacated her seat, hurriedly shoving all of her books into her bag before scurrying toward the girls' dormitories.
I sighed, this time flopping into a much sturdier chair, thankful that it had probably stood much worse abuse than this, and wasn't about to collapse. Hermione settled herself across from me, then rested her forehead on the cool tabletop in a very un-Hermione-like way.
"'Smatter?" I asked her, pulling my Charms homework out of my bag, along with the newly-repaired ink bottle and a quill.
"Mrph." I think that was the most inarticulate thing I'd ever heard her say. At least, the most inarticulate if you excluded those times she was speechless with rage. Which, I gathered, was not the case this time.
"Didn't catch that, sorry." Harry murmured, also settling himself.
"Nothing." she muttered, yanking her Arithmancy book from her bag and beginning her homework without another word.
A few minutes passed in tense, relative silence. Finally, Harry dropped his quill. "I'll do this tomorrow." he told no one in particular, stuffing his Transfiguration essay back into his bag rather violently and heading toward the staircase to our dormitory.
"And where do you think you're going?" Hermione asked tiredly, with rather less than her usual vehemence when it came to procrastinating.
"Down to the Quidditch pitch." Seeing the look on her face, he added, "It's not like I'm getting anything done up here."
"Yeah, I'll come wi---" I began, getting halfway out of my chair before I noticed the glare that Hermione was giving me. "I mean, okay, see you later, mate." I amended, slumping back.
"Yeah," was his only reply as he ascended the stairs. Rather sullenly, I half-heartedly tried to force my concentration back to my schoolwork, but it was shattered once again when Harry returned a few moments later.
Firebolt slung over his shoulder and Invisibility cloak (I assumed) hidden under his robes, he muttered, "See you, mate," and left the Common Room.
I struggled through another quarter of an hour of Charms (Discuss How Suggestion Spells Could Be Incorporated Into a Meandering Mixture (1)) when I had an idea. I slipped a suddenly clammy hand into my robes, clasping it around my wand. Nervously, I forced myself to focus. I still wasn't very good at nonverbal spells, and Hermione couldn't know what I was up to. In my mind, I whispered the thoroughly difficult word string- it looked like nonsense, and would have been absolutely beastly to speak aloud, adding to the need for nonverbality. Vhilynyaar thinyathellelan(2), I thought fiercely, desperately hoping this would work.
"Hermione," I croaked, my voice a little hoarser than it should have been if it had been caused by nervousness alone. I winced; the book hadn't mentioned any negative vocal side effects of this particular Insinuating Incantation. In fact, it hadn't mentioned any side-effects at all, which was part of why I had chosen it; the other part was because most of the others had even worse incantations or required a meld of two or more complex spells, which, needless to say, was currently quite beyond my proficiency.
Not noticing that she was ignoring me, I clutched my wand more tightly and poured what I judged to be a little more magic into the spell. I tried again. "Hermione." This time, it was a murmur, low and smooth, and I allowed myself to relax a little.
"What now, Ron?" she answered, slightly less waspish than usual. I took that as a sign that the spell was working, at least a little. Just to be safe, I put a bit more through the spell, repeating it in my head for good measure.
"It's getting kind of late," I stated, my voice not quite sounding like me anymore. Of its own accord, my body slid the chair around the table, edging closer to Hermione. I was feeling a little detached, but not really unpleasant.
"It's nine-thirty." she shot back flatly, pausing a moment, but not looking up from her book. Her eyes weren't moving anymore, though, and I took that as a good sign.
"Yeah, but aren't you tired?" Without my permission or knowledge, my chair had somehow ended up resting a little behind her, and now, I reached out, placing my hands on her shoulders. Disturbingly, I realized there wasn't a thing I could do about it. Mentally shrugging, I sat back and allowed the spell to control me.
"A..a little." Hermione answered, tensing at the unexpected touch. Gently, I began to massage her shoulders, no longer bothering to fight the spell. There was obviously nothing I could do but A) wait for it to wear off or B) wait until Hermione noticed and broke it for me. Either way, I was stuck, for now.
"Maybe we should do this tomorrow...don't you think?" I whispered, working the tension out of her upper back. Little by little, she began to relax. "We've got the whole weekend...one night off won't hurt...will it?" I wheedled, stroking her neck. A small shiver traveled up her spine and her eyes slid closed.
"I...I don't know...we should probably do it now..." she answered hesitantly as I worked the knots out of her tense neck with a skill I never knew I could have.
"But we've got loads of time..." I breathed into her ear. "We could put it off for just a little bit...couldn't we?" A lock of bushy brown hair was wound around my finger. Delicately, I played with it, tickling her neck a little.
"Well," Hermione finally sighed, relaxing a little more. "Of course we--" Mentally, I began rejoicing though this had no effect on the self that was still playing with her hair.
"--Couldn't." she finished, slipping from beneath my hands. She turned to face me, her features becoming cold and unreadable. "Honestly, Ron," she went on as my hands fell to my sides and my spirits plummeted. "Did you think I wouldn't notice something that clumsy? You couldn't have been more obvious if you'd tried to slip me an Elixir of Enticement!"
I opened my mouth to argue with her, but she cut me off.
"Just think. If I'd used a Shield Charm, like I thought about, you would've been seducing yourself!"
"So why didn't you?" I asked quietly, my voice going a little hoarse again. Apparently, the spell was no longer working.
"Why didn't you think properly before trying a Suggestion Spell? You heard Professor Flitwick! They can have just as much or more effect on the caster as the target!" Hermione sounded on the verge of being slightly hysterical.
"The book said there were no side-effects---" I snapped, my voice rising as well.
"Just which spell did you use!" she asked, exasperated, as she stalked to the other side of the table in order to have a look at the book I'd been using.
"The Insinuating Incantation!" She sounded absolutely incredulous. "Are you mad? How much magic did you put into it!"
"I dunno." I shrugged. "Enough," I amended, becoming rather irate myself.
"This spell is so potent that it needs less magic than 'wingardium leviosa'!"
"Oh." For a moment, silence reigned. There really wasn't anything else to say.
"Forget it." she snapped, gathering up her things. "Do what you want; I'm going to bed."
I was left in the Common Room, feeling very stupid. I also packed my homework away, then dropped into a recently-vacated chair by the fire to wait for Harry, completely oblivious to what I now know was going on down on the Quidditch pitch.
"Ginny!" Harry hissed at the shadow behind the broom shed, checking the grounds to make sure no one else was around. "Ginny?" he repeated, creeping closer.
"Not quite." The figure stepped into the moonlight, and Harry barely had time to register that the girl with her wand covering him really wasn't Ginny before he blacked out.
Harry didn't come up to bed that night. As I sat there, nodding off, I was half expecting him to just sneak by me. So, we'd wake up in the morning, me stiff from sitting in that chair all night and him smirking because he got a good night's rest.
I started out of a doze for the eighth time, deciding that it was time to go to bed. After all, he was always there in the morning, no matter how late he'd out or what he'd been up to. Reassured, I traveled up to the dormitory, yawning as I went. I was sure everything would be fine. Hermione probably wouldn't speak to me for awhile, but by lunch time she probably would have forgiven me.
With my mind quieted, I changed into my pajamas and fell into bed, listening to the familiar snores of the other boys as I fell asleep.
(1) A Meandering Mixture can either get someone physically lost, or, if administered a certain way, get them lost in their mind. I decided that Flitwick was giving them a heads-up on something that might come up in Potions.
(2) This is the first half of a mourning chant from Acorna by Anne McCaffrey. It almost certainly isn't spelled correctly, but this is how I remember teaching myself to say it.
A/N: Got a little touchy-feely there, didn't it? -.-u I apologize for that. That's what I get for writing it between eleven thirty at night and two thirty in the morning, with hands that ALSO had a mind of their own. Maybe they were controlling their hand brethren from me! 0.0 Anyway, I feel the need to let you all know that while I was writing this scene, I had the STRANGEST image of Ron seducing himself by accident (which, as Als told me when I mentioned it to her, you probably REALLY didn't need to know). But I just wanted to share that with you; it made ME laugh (well, first, it made me go, 'wtf!' but then I laughed).
Also, she read this and was a little confused on what Ron's spell, the Insinuating Incantation, was actually supposed to do. Let me try to explain it. The Suggestion Spells are a group of similar spells that are sort of like hypnosis with varying levels of power and influencing various types of emotions. Ron picked a particularly powerful one that makes the caster's voice sound like that insidiously persuasive little voice in the back of your mind that wants you to do something you're not quite sure you want to do. What Ron was trying to do was get Hermione to let him off of homework for the night. However, he messed up and cast the spell too strongly, causing him to be sort of... Possessed by it, if you will. It acted on his subconscious desires (-wink- subtle foreshadowing! haha), making him into someone he usually would not or could not be in order to achieve his original ends. End psychiatric rant.
Umino out.
