The Locked Room
Chapter 6: Espionage
Ginny had to restrain herself from sending people on the sidewalk flying as she directed her footsteps towards the Ministry. She knew it was close to the end of the work day and hoped that she wasn't too late to catch Hermione as she came out of the Department of Mysteries. It had been a gray day and was beginning to rain. The speckled sidewalks flashed past as Ginny finally approached the telephone box. She practically yelled into it, and was admitted.
Hermione had wandered out of the Department about five minutes before Ginny arrived and was in such a state that she couldn't quite find her way to the Atrium. When she did reach the main level, hoping to apparate back to the flat, Ginny was right there to confront her.
"Hermione! This is perfect; I need to talk to you about Ron."
"What about him?" said an almost disheveled-looking Hermione.
"I saw him today coming out of a restaurant with a pretty Asian girl. She looked like she could have been related to Cho Chang. I wondered if you knew anything about that." Ginny knew she wasn't taking the most tactful approach, but with Hermione, the best way to get information was to ask her a direct question and avoid lengthy explanations.
"It must have been Marie then. I thought I saw Ron take her into the elevator with him. I just couldn't believe it." Hermione paused for half a minute before she burst out. "How could he want to date her? She's positively cruel and… and mean!" Ginny merely raised her eyebrows. It seemed as though Hermione was at a loss for words. Ginny started to think that everyone she knew had gone completely mad.
"Hang on, let me get this straight: you won't date him yourself, but he can't date anyone else? That's not exactly feasible, Hermione. I know you're confused with all of this going on, but I hope it hasn't made you take leave of your senses completely."
"I haven't taken leave of my senses, I'm just confounded. I mean, how could Ron go and date MARIE of all people right after confessing he loves ME? It doesn't seem possible for Ron to do such a thing."
"Why not? He went and snogged Lavender Brown right after you had asked him to that party."
"Don't bring that up, Ginny, please. There has to be a reason for all of this."
"Why do you care so much anyway? You have Charlie, don't you?" Hermione stopped in her tracks.
"That doesn't matter right now. I just need to find out what prompted Ron to ask out Marie, and then I'll be content." Ginny could only sigh as Hermione stalked off in a huff. Ginny was usually in favor of spying on her brothers, but this time she didn't think the result would be half as amusing as it usually was.
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Harry left Ron sitting at the kitchen table, bemoaning his fate. Harry shook his head and reflected that Ron was always cursing his circumstances and it had gotten a little old. As for Harry, he kept his thoughts to himself because he knew that they would only depress if they became audible. The only thing that really made Harry get up in the morning was the possibility that he might see Ginny at some point during the day.
His routine was relatively simple. He would wake up at six in the morning because he couldn't keep himself asleep any longer. He usually only caught three or four hours of rest a night. He would make coffee and eat something, talk to Hermione a little before she went to work, and then he would be off as well after a relatively warm shower and a hefty dose of regret.
After the war had ended, and the Horcruxes had all been destroyed, Harry had presumed he would be happier. He could find Ginny and tell her that he wanted them to be together again. But that particular dream had never become corporeal. He had watched her for days on end, secretly. She had seemed happier without him. Harry's thoughts and lifestyle could only be considered glum. No one deserved that, least of all Ginny. He couldn't even bring himself to talk to her any more. That truly was denying himself because her conversation was what made life amusing, diverting, worth living. So he found excuses to be near her in visiting the Burrow as often as possible or encouraging Hermione to have Ginny over. Hermione always looked at him like he was having a queer fit when Harry suggested she invite Ginny because she knew that they hadn't talked in years. They had an interesting life of symbiosis, neither one putting off the other living their life, but still there, fueling existence. Harry could only imagine Ginny wouldn't forget what they had together, romantically. Although he could trust in Ginny's constancy, he wasn't able to bring himself to asking her out again without feeling extreme remorse. He had tried several times, but he never got out even a single word. Because Harry was carrying this eternal flame for Ginny, he never even looked at another girl. Ginny fueled all his fantasies, all his hopes. It was the depression of his demeanor that was keeping them apart. Until Harry felt he had conquered some degree of this melancholy he couldn't tell her.
When Voldemort had finally gone, it was a strange feeling. Part of Harry seemed to have fled, and he was left remarkably milder and less likely to take risks. It seemed to Harry that no aspect of his life remained unaltered after the second war had ended. Therefore, he kept to the one place that was likely to remain stable – his room. He had collected quite a sizeable book collection after the war, finding that reading was often preferable to all the inquisitive glances he suffered being out in public. He hated being hailed as a hero when he felt like a complete failure in being unable to admit his love for Ginny. Ron should have been content to at least have the courage to tell Hermione he loved her, even if she didn't know how to requite a love like Ron's just yet. Hermione didn't understand what love was. Harry knew that Ron did because he was miserable right now.
Harry also knew that Ron would continue to get himself into embarrassing scrapes with designing females until Hermione did finally requite Ron's passion. Love was something Harry thought he understood pretty fully. Since it helped him defeat Voldemort where no one else could, Harry thought he might have been the only person to understand it.
Opening his sock drawer, Harry rummaged in the back for a while until he found what he was looking for. He took out the picture Colin Creevey had taken of Harry and Ginny's first kiss. At first, Harry had been embarrassed by the photo, but after a while it became the only thing that could bring him to smile.
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To Ron's extreme mortification a few days later, he received what can only be termed an epistle of love from Marie Chang. The contents were such that he could not bear to reread them, and therefore he immediately threw the object of disgust into the fire. To sum it up, Marie was coming over later, and held very high hopes that they would go through the motions of another date. In blatant despair, which was usually how Ron went about things, he slumped into an armchair in their minuscule living room and groaned loudly. This did not produce Harry or Hermione from their rooms (which had been his design in moaning so thoroughly), so he thought he'd try again by thumping his head against the wall several times and stamping his feet on the floor. After a few minutes of this, an irate Hermione poked her head out of her door. Ron perceptibly brightened.
"Ron, if you're not dying or mortally wounded, I would appreciate it if you would stop impersonating a belligerent elephant. I'm trying to get some reading done for work." And with that, she promptly slammed the door shut again. Learning that mere annoying affectations would not be enough to educate the entire building to his grievances, Ron opted for shouting.
"Marie Chang is coming over later, just so you know!" he bellowed. The reverberating silence could have been interpreted two ways. Either they didn't care, or they cared a lot and were too mortified to say anything about it ("they" being Hermione, of course).
Finally Ron decided after several more minutes filled with pristine silence that if jealousy could work on Hermione, even if it was just job-related jealousy, then something might be accomplished. Ron knew he had gone too far to mind manipulating Hermione like that. It had to be done.
Ron Weasley knew it had to be done because he was about to burst. He would have gladly told anyone how difficult it was to live in the same flat as the woman you love and have to share a bathroom when you couldn't ravish her with… affection. For some, it might have been impossible to call Hermione pretty, but those who knew her found her soft down-to earth demeanor practically irresistible. It was only that very morning that Ron had stepped out of the shower au natural and Hermione had burst into the room. Red-faced she had made a hasty retreat, but Ron found the incident hard to gloss over as though nothing had happened. He didn't mind too much, but he desperately wished that their positions could be reversed one day, or even simultaneous.
Sighing, and trying not to think about Hermione au natural, Ron plastered a false grin on his face and went about getting ready for Marie to arrive. If Hermione wasn't saying anything now, she certainly would later on.
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After having reread the same paragraph at least twelve times, Hermione slammed shut the book. It was a rudimentary piece of work, simply describing the sub-departments in the Department of Mysteries. She had borrowed it from the staff room in hopes of finding out something about that locked room. To her dismay, nothing was said about the shut twelfth door. She had tried opening it several times, but found that she could not. Perhaps the apparent "love" shut up in that room truly was a force to be reckoned with. It was on the twelfth reading of the aforementioned paragraph that Hermione finally admitted to herself that her thoughts were elsewhere.
Three days of snooping had gleaned no results about the intricacies of Ron's love life. At work, it was impossible not to notice Marie's almost cheerful attitude when she administered assignments and supervised their progress. What was difficult for Hermione to determine was why Marie would want to date Ron so badly. The other day, the reverse question had been paramount – Hermione reasoned that the other day she had been on edge, her nerves were agitated and that was why she had gotten so angry. What else could be the reason?
Because Hermione's time had been so occupied in watching Ron's every movement, she hadn't seen Charlie as much as she could have wished. Another downfall was that she had managed to see much more of Ron than she was comfortable seeing. She had been flustered this morning, unable to concentrate on anything except what could possibly be locked up in that room and why it was so important that she had completely forgotten to knock on the bathroom door before charging right in. And she paid for this lack of caution as there was Ronald as nature intended, quite stunned. Her first impulse was to stand and stare at him. Lean, tall and muscular were three adjectives that could have described the sight, had she the words at the moment. Once she had slightly regained her senses, she realized she should have left the room a little sooner instead of gaping like a child in a candy shop.
Although she hated to admit it, it took Hermione the greater part of the morning pacing her room to calm herself after this incident. Realizing later on that she had let her guard down in front of Ron, who she was supposed to be spying on, her confusion settled into anger and she was quite happy to yell at him under the pretence of being disturbed. Indeed she was disturbed, but not in the sense that Harry and Ron would have surmised. She was shaking as she replayed the morning in her mind, but she shook even more as Ron yelled out that Marie was coming over later. With a throaty sigh, Hermione opened the book again and attempted to force her thoughts onto less fleshy subject matter. With the enemy approaching, it was best to have her wits about her, she decided.
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Ron was sitting tapping his fingers on his knees as the hour approached for Marie to arrive. Harry had tactfully left the flat Ron noticed from the popping noise he heard coming from his room. However, Ron was fairly certain that Hermione had stood her ground. It was difficult not to be too encouraged by this fact, but Ron couldn't contain a genuine smile of anticipation that his plans seemed to be working out according to his desires.
At eight o'clock precisely, a concise rap was heard at the door. Ron opened it up to reveal a demurely smiling Marie looking softer somehow with her hair in loose curls and a fuzzy white sweater. Ron almost began to appreciate what Harry saw in Cho. Inviting her in, she smiled more broadly and took an inventory of the flat, so it seemed. Ron figured she was storing up information to quiz Hermione about later. He smiled at the prospect of Marie having dirt on Hermione.
"Thanks for having me over," she said amicably seating herself on the couch.
"No problem," he grunted out. "What do you want to do?"
"I thought we could just get to know each other a little. I can conjure up something for dinner here, if you'd like." Ron nodded at her, adding in a little benign smirk. He glanced furtively at Hermione's door, but not a sound could he hear, not even a cough.
As the evening wore on, Marie and Ron certainly did get to know each other over an edible, if not remarkable dinner conjured deftly with a flick of Marie's wand. They had opened a bottle of cheap Warlock Wine and sat talking about unimportant things until midnight, at least. That was when things got a little awkward for Ron as Marie had nestled closer to him on the couch. Her head was on his shoulder, and she was a little the worse for the wine it seemed. Ron almost wanted to laugh at the idea of this Marie, infamous as a work horse (almost as bad as Hermione) loosening up this easily. With a pang of combined terror and sickness, Ron realized that Marie must like him quite a bit. As he was staring off, horrified more and more with each passing moment, Marie was moving in for the kill, or rather, the kiss. Before Ron knew what was going on, she was straddling him, her tongue desperately attempting to make inroads on his firmly clenched mouth. The gyrating of Marie on top of him caused another embarrassment from his nether-regions, happy to be getting any attention at all. Ron attempted to push Marie off of him when Hermione's door banged open and she fell out of her room onto her face. It appeared, from what Ron could see in his position that she had been peering through the keyhole. He had never taken Hermione for a voyeur. Marie groggily separated herself from Ron's face and leered over at Hermione, who was looking sheepish, embarrassed and slightly miffed, it seemed.
"I'm sorry," Hermione snapped, "I'll just leave you to your… liaison." With an angry snort she disapparated, leaving Marie to renew her assault on Ron's person, to his eternal frustration. How could it be that when he finally got action from a girl, he wasn't able to enjoy it? It was all Hermione's fault. If he couldn't have her, he wouldn't put up with anything less, no matter how difficult his libido found it.