Story Title/Link: Amongst Charms and Chalkboards
School and Theme: Hogwarts: Madam Puddifoot. Look at romance and love in the wizarding world.
Special Rule: Incorporate the colour green and the meaning behind it in your story: Envy
Main Prompt: [Setting] An empty classroom
Additional Prompts: [Genre] Romance, [Character] Lavender Brown
Year: 4
Word count: 2355
Hermione can't remember how she got here. She can't remember much, really, other than the dramatic scene that caused her dramatic exit from that party. She catches sight of her reflection in the classroom window and does a double-take. She's never seen herself looking quite like that before—wide-eyed, slack-jawed, and green with some strange mixture of envy and nausea that she doesn't like to think about too hard. She forces herself to turn away from the oddly mesmerising sight of her own sanity falling apart and takes in her surroundings.
The Charms classroom. Of course. She has always taken solace in her studies, after all, and therefore found places of learning to be her safe space. It is no surprise that she should have run here in her panic. She dashes a hand across her eyes, angry at her own foolishness. She is the brightest witch of her age, and she has no business falling apart like this. So what if Ron Weasley should happen to fancy snogging someone?
OK, if she's honest, it's not the snogging per se that bothers her. It's the fact that she's just seen him snogging someone who's not her. When she last checked they were going to Slughorn's Christmas party together. But either way, she mustn't let it get to her. There are a thousand things in the world more important than a little drama caused by Ron's lips—her studies, for example, or the rights of House Elves, or Harry's struggle against You-Know-Who.
She takes a calming breath and removes her wand from her pocket. A little Charms work is just the thing, and she has the whole of this deserted room to practice. She needs to focus her mind on something more productive than Ron's life choices. She draws the required flourish in the air and thinks of the incantation with all her might.
She doesn't make yellow canaries, not this time. Rather, bursting forth from the end of her wand comes a flock of disgruntled green woodpeckers, who immediately set about savaging as much of the wooden classroom furniture as they can get their beaks on.
With that, she gives up on being the brightest witch of her age and gives up on thinking about anything other than Ron and Lavender. She's not proud of her uncharacteristic weakness—of course, she isn't—but she rationalises that these are exceptional circumstances.
She sinks to the floor, shuts her eyes, and listens to the hammering that echoes in her ears.
…...
Ron is feeling lucky, even though he knows Felix had nothing to do with it. He is feeling lucky, even though he had that petty argument with Hermione just minutes ago. He knows now, with a little distance from the moment, that they will be okay. She didn't mean to question his competence—she has always had more faith in him than he has in himself. It might have helped that Harry gave him a bit of a talking to, as well. He said something about getting his act together and putting things right with Hermione before she found another date to Slughorn's party.
It's uncanny how Harry knows him so well that he was able to say exactly the right thing to get him into gear. He was hurt at the idea that Hermione had been snogging Krum all those years ago—so hurt that he allowed his bad mood to overtake him and lost sight of the bigger picture. Yet as soon as Harry mentioned the party, he managed to get his priorities straight again. Ron is perfectly willing to concede that he is often a bit of an idiot, but he's not so much of an idiot as to jeopardise that invitation he's been so excited about.
With Harry's words of encouragement ringing in his ears and the last lingering traces of one-hundred-percent-natural luck simmering in his belly, he sets out to find Hermione. He fancies his chances of putting things right. She did ask him to be his date for next week, after all, and there must be plenty of Firewhisky circulating upstairs right now. Between all these parties he's pretty sure they'll be able to iron things out.
Then he opens the door to the common room and freezes in shock. Because there, somehow, impossibly, a red-headed boy is snogging a curly-haired girl.
His first reaction is not a helpful one. He feels himself go green at the gills, a sickening blend of disgust and envy threatening to overwhelm him. Then he gets a better view of the girl and sighs in relief. It isn't Hermione after all, but Lavender, and his panic was premature. All is well, and he will have his chance to fix things with her.
Then he gets a better view of the boy, and the world stands still. He's looking at his own face joined to Lavender's at the lips, looking at his own limbs wrapped around her pliant curves.
He simply doesn't understand. How can it be possible?
"Ron?" Ginny's incredulous voice reaches his ears as she pops up at his elbow. "But—that's—"
"Not me," he interrupts. "Merlin only knows who it is."
"How do I know you're you?" she asks, perceptive as ever.
"I'm scared of spiders because of that teddy bear prank," he offers hurriedly, "but that's not important right now. Who is that, and why are they snogging Lavender disguised as me?"
Dean is on the scene now, looking harassed, but not as harassed as Ron feels. It is difficult to feel even vaguely calm, given the circumstances.
"It's Seamus," Dean says, clearly uncomfortable with this information. "I'm sorry—I told him it was a horrible idea. He used Polyjuice to turn into you and get revenge for that Puking Pastille the other week. And… because he was jealous that Lavender's been sweet on you."
"He did what?" Ginny asks the question Ron is too shocked to voice.
"He's posing as Ron," Dean explains, staring at the floor.
"Well, I need to go and stop him." Ron finds his words at last, and now he finds that he is spoiling for a fight. His earlier nausea has fled, to be replaced only by an overwhelming desire to take out his frustration on Seamus's stupid Ron-shaped face.
"No." Ginny stops him with her arms about his torso, and he is on the point of shaking her off and continuing regardless when she speaks again. "You need to go after Hermione. She… she saw them. And then she ran away."
…...
Hermione can't entirely differentiate the noise of the woodpeckers from the sound of her own pulse pounding in her ears, not any more. She misses the rational and intelligent young woman she used to be—she misses her fiercely—but she supposes that this is what her mother meant when she warned her about teen drama.
The door opens, and she forces herself to lift her head. The classroom is awash in a flurry of green. Hermione pauses just long enough to notice that her bitter jealousy at least gave rise to an enormous flock of birds, far bigger than she has ever managed to conjure before.
Then she sees who has walked in the door.
She doesn't even hesitate. She sees Ron standing there, looking about ready to vomit, and thrusts her wand in his general direction.
"Oppugno!"
They may not be the canaries she intended to practise, but these woodpeckers are at least obedient. They descend on him in a cloud of flying feathers and angry beaks as Ron fends them off with more energy than efficiency.
He looks a bit pathetic, really, and it soothes something in her jealous heart to see it. Hermione is sure he'll drive the birds off soon enough, so in the meantime, she intends to sit back and enjoy the view.
Only he doesn't drive them off. Minutes pass, and Ron is still swamped by a cloud of green feathers, and blood is beginning to trickle down his arms. Her heart seems a bit less jealous than before, she notes, and rather a lot more broken.
She admits defeat and calls off the attack.
…...
Ron is pretty proud of himself, all things considered. He has summoned the courage to put things right, survived an attack by the most exceptional witch he's ever met, and he's pretty sure he's even worked out why she attacked him in the first place. He's heard it suggested before now that he has the emotional range of a teaspoon, but he reckons he must have graduated to a tablespoon at this point.
If this goes to plan, he might make it to a moderately-sized ladle by the end of the night.
The thing is, he reckons there's only one reason that Hermione might send a crowd of woodpeckers to savage a guy she's recently invited to a party. Add in the fact that he knows she just saw a person she thought was him snogging Lavender, and he's pretty convinced of his conclusion.
He's certain she's jealous.
He therefore takes a deep breath and starts to speak. "It wasn't me."
"I beg your pardon?" She sounds cold beyond belief, and it makes him want to vomit all over again.
He concentrates instead on wiping the smears of blood from his arms, and then he tries again. "That wasn't me, who was kissing her. I know that sounds stupid, but it was Seamus. He used Polyjuice because he was angry with me for a stupid prank the other day."
"That's the most ridiculous story I've ever heard," she informs him smartly, with those blasted sharp-beaked green birds still circling.
"I know. I know it is." He is starting to panic now, but he can't do that. Not yet, not until he's made things right. "I wasn't even there, Hermione. I was at the pitch still, with Harry. You can check with him."
"Why would you still be there?" He can hear her trademark curiosity overtaking her now, and he tries not to wilt in relief.
He steels himself to answer the question honestly. "He was telling me to get my head out of my backside and make things right with you. He knows I've been in a bad mood recently, and he was being a good mate and telling me to fix it before Slughorn's party. Because… because he knows how much I'm looking forward to being your date." He feels his voice break slightly on the final syllable.
She doesn't answer that, but he can see her turning it over in her mind, trying to filter out the truth in his words. In the meantime, she conjures a cloth and starts dabbing at the scratches on his arms. He doesn't speak or move at her touch—he barely dares to breathe. He simply stands and watches her tend to his wounds with obvious concern.
It's stupid. They're only shallow cuts, and he almost reckons he deserves them. He may not have snogged anyone, but he's been cold with her these last few days. He knows that if he'd just been clearer with her about how excited he was at her invitation, they could have been in a much happier place right now. To be clear, self-confidence has never been his strong suit.
The silence stretches on for some moments, interrupted only by the ever quieter knocking of the woodpeckers, and it occurs to him that he must have really quite a lot of scratches. He can tell this both from the length of time she spends caring for him and the increasingly guilty crease to her brow.
Then the door bursts open, and Seamus and Lavender tumble through it. Seamus is halfway back to his own appearance, now, and the sight of it is even more uncanny than watching the two of them snog when Seamus looked fully Ron.
"Seamus?" It's the first word Hermione has spoken in several minutes, and the shock of it shakes Ron right to his toes.
"Yeah." His former friend scratches awkwardly at his ear. "That's me."
"Looks like this room is taken," Lavender trills, lighthearted as always. "Come on, Seamus, let's find somewhere else."
With that, she drags him back out of the door. It has been a very short interruption, set against those long minutes of silence, yet somehow the one more than outweighs the other—or at least, that's what Ron hopes.
"Hermione..." He's not sure where that sentence is going, but he feels the need to try all the same.
"Ron." She throws the cloth on a nearby desk and nods as if deciding something.
The woodpeckers are quieter, now, and he risks a glance up at the ceiling. Those damn birds are turning lazy circles around the chandelier, the sight of it somehow unnatural compared with their earlier—rather energetic—attack.
He looks away again, back down at her, and finds himself caught by surprise. Because she is surging up to meet him, balancing precariously on her tiptoes as she brings her lips to his. And then she is kissing him, hot and fast and messy, and he can taste the jealousy and joy dancing on her tongue. He's spent a lot of time wondering what kissing Hermione would be like, but never did he dare to imagine it would be like this—all teeth and teasing and over halfway to snogging. He wasn't brave enough, either, to fantasise that she might push him back against the edge of a desk until her hips were flush against his, and yet that is exactly what is happening.
Then again, he supposes she has faced exceptional provocation tonight. After the display he witnessed in the common room he can well understand why she should be so keen to mark her territory, here, amongst Charms and chalkboards. It is, he supposes, a pretty appropriate place for a first kiss with the brightest witch of her age.
It seems that he has a lot to thank that party for and every reason to be grateful to Lavender Brown. But more than anything else, he has a newfound healthy respect for the beaks of green woodpeckers.