Chapter 44: The Day Ron Weasley Stood Up For Me

When we arrived back at Hogwarts, Ron handed Harry all the candy I'd bought for him at Honeydukes, as he had offered to carry it back for me. He pretended like it was from the both of us, and I would have been annoyed at Ron for trying to share credit with me, but I was in such a good mood that I decided to let it go.

After dinner, we made our way back to the common room. I had eaten so much I felt like I wouldn't be able to climb all the stairs, but somehow, I managed. The delicious stew was the first meal I had properly enjoyed in a while. I decided not to think about all the work I would have to do tomorrow and let myself enjoy the remainder of the night.

When we reached the corridor that led to the portrait of the Fat Lady, we found it filled with students all craning to see what was going on up ahead. I tried to see over all the heads in front of me, but I was too short. I shrugged and waited while Harry and Ron continued to try to see.

Ron's older brother Percy arrived on the scene then, pushing his way through the crowd in an attempt to reach the front. Using his status as Head Boy, he was able to make it through, and then in a voice that caused a chill to run down my spine, he

I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly feeling very cold and very worried. I didn't know what was going on, but his tone couple with the fact that bad things kept happening at Hogwarts told me that it couldn't be good.

It didn't take long for Professor Dumbledore to arrive, pushing his way through the crowd much more successfully than Percy had. When he had passed, I peered around the students and got a clear view of the portrait of the Fat Lady.

I gasped, shutting my eyes, and grabbed the closest thing, which happened to be Harry's arm. The Fat Lady was gone and the portrait appeared to have been slashed, probably with a knife, strips of the painting now lying on the floor. I felt my overly full stomach turn and my head start to spin. When did this happen? How did nobody see it happen? Why would somebody do it? None of it made any sense and I felt a desperate need for answers.

I opened my eyes and made a point not to look back in the direction of the portrait. Instead, I ended up looking toward Ron, whose eyes were focused on my hand still clasped around Harry's arm. I let go as inconspicuously as I could and turned my attention toward Professor Dumbledore.

Peeves had arrived and the Headmaster was prying him for information. For some reason Peeves was still making things difficult, even with Professor Dumbledore himself, but eventually he divulged what he knew.

When he mentioned Sirius Black, I felt my heart constrict and I grabbed Harry's arm again, this time not for my own protection but for his. If Black was in the castle, it meant he was here looking for Harry. I began to wonder how he could have gotten in. He couldn't just walk through the front doors. If he'd come by any magical means, Dumbledore would surely have detected it. And all the secret passages were being monitored by Filch and the dementors, I presumed.

In order for the teachers to conduct a proper search for Sirius Black, we were all sent to the Great Hall to sleep. Dumbledore conjured up a pile of sleeping bags for everyone and we spread out in the now furniture-free room.

I wished I had Crookshanks with me. He was probably up in my dorm missing me right now, and wondering why neither I nor any of my dormmates had come back for the night. It was weird not having him cuddled up against me, fighting for control of my pillow. I thought about asking for permission to go and get him, but knew that no professor was going to allow me into Gryffindor Tower tonight. Instead, I just tried to get as much sleep as I could, determined to give him extra love tomorrow.

Over the next few days, everyone was talking about how Sirius Black managed to get in and out of the castle unseen. However, even interest in that began to die down in favor of the upcoming quidditch match. I had hoped that after the nice reprieve I had had in Hogsmeade, my workload would become easier to handle, but I was wrong. It didn't take long before I was immersed in assignments and lies and exhaustion once again.

In fact, when I entered defence against the dark arts after lunch on Friday, it wasn't until Ron pointed it out that I realized it was Snape standing behind the desk and not Lupin. He informed us that Professor Lupin was sick and that he would be teaching the lesson that day.

I didn't mind that Professor Snape was our teacher like Harry and Ron did. What I minded was that I'd read up on Hinkypunks in preparation for today's lecture, and instead Professor Snape decided to teach us about werewolves. I'd had to use my time turner to have enough time to read the chapter thoroughly enough to be ready for this lecture, and it was all a waste now.

I was so frustrated that I had trouble remembering to restrain myself. After spending over two years in Professor Snape's potions classes, I'd learned to keep my thoughts to myself most of the time and not to attempt to answer too many questions in class, lest he make fun of me. But if Professor Snape was going to insist on quizzing the class on a topic they hadn't studied – and for good reason, werewolves weren't even on the curriculum this year – I wasn't going to sit by and stay silent.

So, when he asked us how to identify a werewolf from a regular wolf and ignored my raised hand, I lost my patience and called out the answer without being called upon.

Professor Snape was not impressed. He took five points from me for speaking out of turn. I could feel the entire class staring at me from behind. I knew they all thought I was a know-it-all, just like he'd said. I just wanted to disappear.

I lowered my traitorous hand that I was always waving around in the air and slid as low as I could in my chair. I silently vowed to never raise my hand again. I could feel the heat of embarrassment filling my cheeks and the tears of humiliation threatening to fall from my eyes, and I looked towards the floor, wishing for the safety of Harry's invisibility cloak.

It wasn't fair. I knew the answers, so why wouldn't Professor Snape let me say so, especially when it was clear nobody else had the answer. I had no problem letting other people answer questions sometimes, but he'd been acting like we were all a bunch of idiots, and after weeks of endless work and exhaustion making sure that I was keeping up with all my classes, I just couldn't let him pretend like I was stupid.

I was waiting for it. I was expecting the class to burst into laughter and start point at me and mocking me just like I knew they always wanted to. Instead, Ron straightened in his seat next to me and opened his mouth.

In an angry voice, he was almost yelling as he told Professor Snape off. My heart soared as I listened to him defend me and my eyes watered at the thought that he was willing to stand up to our scariest teacher for me.

Ron was immediately given a detention, but he didn't even seem to care. The tension in the classroom was tangible. Everybody was terrified of making even the slightest sound for fear of more detentions being handed out. When Snape turned and walked back to his desk to assign us our work, I turned to look at Ron. He had never gotten so mad at a teacher like that, and I couldn't remember him ever going out of his way to defend me before. He refused to make eye contact with me, so instead I focused on the notes I was supposed to be making on werewolves as I silently smiled to myself.

I waited until the end of our last class, when Harry went off to quidditch practice, to bring up the events of our defence against the dark arts class.

"I wanted to say thank you," I said to him as we made our way to the common room. "You didn't have to do that."

Looking straight ahead, Ron shrugged. "Snape gets away with too much around here. Besides, he's always picking on you for being smart and it's not fair. You work really hard to know everything."

"I do," I agreed. "But I feel bad. Now you have to scrub bedpans because of me."

"I knew what I was doing," Ron replied. "Besides, you're my friend. I couldn't just sit there and do nothing."

I felt a small flutter and smiled at him. It was nice having people who cared enough to look out for me. Ron had had my back today. I knew I could count on him to protect me if I needed it, and it was a good feeling.

"Do you want me to look over your potions essay tonight?" I asked. The essay in question was due tomorrow, and when Ron had asked me to look it over the previous day, I'd told him I didn't have the time.

"Are you sure?" Ron asked. "I know you have a lot to do, and now we have that werewolf essay on top of it all."

"I'll make the time," I told him.

I felt like I had to do something in return for him. He was going to spend the evening scrubbing bedpans, the least I could do was read over his essay while he did so. If I had to repeat an hour later, then so be it. I'd find the time to sleep it off some other time.