DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but this twisted so-called "plot".
Some of the dialogue here has been directly lifted (errrr, borrowed) from HBP.
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"Bugger!" Ron exclaimed in panic, his eyes fixed on a sign on the Gryffindor notice board. He looked green enough for Hermione to feel legitimately scared that the Sunday roast he had consumed not too long ago was going to make an ugly reappearance.
It was an announcement regarding the date of their Apparition test - the twenty-first of April (for those who would be seventeen years of age on or before the date).
"Bugger, bugger, buggering shite. I'm going to fail. There's no way I'm not going to. Fred and George will never let me live it down!"
Ron agonised over the test for over an hour that evening. The common room was filled with sixth year students doing the same while simultaneously scrambling to complete their Defence Against the Dark Arts essay on Dementors.
Hermione had got hers over and done with three days ago.
She looked across at Harry who was sitting on the other side of the table and frowning down at an open book. He had decided that the solution to his Slughorn-predicament lay with the self-styled "half-blood Prince".
Irritated, Hermione wrinkled her nose and said, "You won't find anything in there."
Harry huffed, and looked up to scowl at her.
"Don't start, Hermione. If it hadn't been for the Prince, Ron wouldn't be sitting here now."
"He would if you'd just listened to Snape in our first year," she snapped.
She waited expectantly for him to say something more, but he simply turned back to his book, silently dismissing her. So she spoke again, more irate than before,
"I'm telling you, the stupid Prince isn't going to be able to help you with this, Harry! There's only one way to force someone to do what you want, and that's the Imperius Curse, which is illegal–"
"Yeah, I know that, thanks," Harry cut in glibly, not bothering to look at her again, "That's why I'm looking for something different. Dumbledore says Veritaserum won't do it, but there might be something else, a potion or a spell…"
"You're going about it the wrong way," she stressed, "Only you can get the memory, Dumbledore says. That must mean you can persuade Slughorn where other people can't. It's not a question of slipping him a potion, anyone could do that–"
She was interrupted again, this time by Ron: "How d'you spell 'belligerent'?" He was feverishly shaking his quill, looking riled up, "It can't be B–U–M –"
"No, it isn't," Hermione assured him, plucking his parchment away from his hands and examining his ungainly scrawl, "And 'augury' doesn't begin O– R–G either," She stared at him with bewilderment. "What kind of quill are you using?"
"It's one of Fred and George's Spell-Check ones … but I think the charm must be wearing off…" he answered sulkily.
"Yes, it must. Because we were asked how we'd deal with dementors, not 'Dugbogs,' and I don't remember you changing your name to 'Roonil Wazlib' either."
Ron gaped at his essay – stricken.
"Ah no!" he moaned, "Don't say I'll have to write the whole thing out again!"
Hermione sighed at the pathetically aggrieved look on his face, and pulled her wand out.
"It's okay," she said consolingly, "we can fix it."
She began tapping at all the faulty words, correcting them one by one. Ron watched her for a moment, and then leaned back in his chair, covering his eyes tiredly.
"I love you, Hermione."
She nearly threw his banal, badly written essay right back at him. Anger, sharp and scorching, speared its way up her spine and flooded her face with heat. How dare he… how dare he say that to her, now, so flippantly, as a way to thank her for helping him with his bloody homework, when she had spent over a year aching to hear it from him.
With great difficulty she took a breath to calm herself down, and said as disinterestedly as could manage, "Don't let Lavender hear you saying that."
He continued to rub his eyes, radiating fatigue. "I won't. …Or maybe I will… then she'll ditch me…"
Arsehole.
"Why don't you ditch her if you want to finish it?" Harry asked, saving Ron from her reaction.
"You haven't ever chucked anyone, have you? You and Cho just–"
"Sort of fell apart, yeah."
"Wish that would happen with me and Lavender. But the more I hint I want to finish it, the tighter she holds on. It's like going out with the giant squid."
It was clearer than ever, at that moment, that Ron and Ginny were siblings. Apparently, they employed the same shitty tactics when it came to ending relationships.
"Fecking no good, sallow, greasy wankstain!"
They watched Seamus stomp off to bed furiously, all the while muttering colourful adjectives to describe Snape.
Hermione felt vaguely angry with everyone and everything. She supposed it was the amalgamation of stomach cramps, fatigue, and dire Theo-withdrawal symptoms. Thankfully, Harry and Ron had fallen silent after Seamus' departure.
"There," she said eventually, and gave Ron his essay back.
They were the only people left in the common room by then.
"Thanks a million," he said, "Can I borrow your quill for the conclusion?"
Of course he could. She handed him the feather wordlessly, and sat back and observed his silhouette. He was too tall for the low table he was working on, so he was hunched awkwardly over his parchment. His hair hung over his forehead, glowing in the light of the fire. Her resentment towards him dissipated with the suddenness of a flame being doused with a bucket of sand. He distractedly bit the corner of his lip and furrowed his brow as he worked, looking for all the world like a dedicated scholar...
...A small explosion like a gunshot rang out, and she shrieked. Ron jerked wildly, sousing his essay with ink.
"Kreacher!" Harry cried.
Hermione stared in astonishment at the sour looking House-Elf, decked out in rags.
He bowed deeply, and rasped, "Master said he wanted regular reports on what the Malfoy boy is doing, so Kreacher has come to give–"
Crack.
This time it was Dobby. He glared at Kreacher with his enormous eyes.
"Dobby has been helping too, Harry Potter! And Kreacher ought to tell Dobby when he is coming to see Harry Potter so they can make their reports together!"
Unacceptably baffled, Hermione demanded an explanation.
Harry dithered, shooting her an uncertain glance, "Well… they've been following Malfoy for me..."
"Night and day," Kreacher added waspishly.
"Dobby has not slept for a week, Harry Potter!" Dobby chirped deliriously.
"You haven't slept, Dobby?" Hermione raged, "But surely, Harry, you didn't tell him not to–"
"No! No, of course I didn't! Dobby, you can sleep, all right?" (– well, how benevolent of you, Harry!–) "But has either of you found out anything?"
She participated sparingly in the discussion that followed. Finally, Malfoy's mysterious disappearances had been accounted for. She almost found herself smacking a book on her head like Harry, because it was so obvious. The Room of Requirement. Of course.
The second after he dismissed the two House-Elves, Harry turned to Hermione and Ron, and beamed.
"How good's this? We know where Malfoy's going! We've got him cornered now!"
Ron shrugged glumly, dabbing ineffectually at the puddle of ink on his essay.
With a long-suffering sigh, Hermione pulled it away from him and began draining off the ink off with her wand.
"But what's all this about him going up there with a 'variety of students'?" she asked Harry, "How many people are in on it? You wouldn't think he'd trust lots of them to know what he's doing…"
"Yeah, that is weird. I heard him telling Crabbe it wasn't Crabbe's business what he was doing… so what's he telling all these… all these…" Harry pondered silently for a minute... then suddenly – "God, I've been stupid," he said quietly. "It's bloody obvious, isn't it? There was a great vat of it down in the dungeon… He could've nicked some any time during that lesson…"
"Nicked what?" Ron wondered.
Agitation had driven Harry to his feet; he paced madly as he rambled.
"Polyjuice Potion! He stole some of the Polyjuice Potion Slughorn showed us in our first Potions lesson… There aren't a whole variety of students standing guard for Malfoy… it's just Crabbe and fucking Goyle as usual… Yeah, it all fits! They're stupid enough to do what they're told even if he won't tell them what he's up to… but he doesn't want them to be seen lurking around outside the Room of Requirement, so he's got them taking Polyjuice to make them look like other people… Those two girls I saw him with when he missed Quidditch – ha! Crabbe and Goyle!"
Ron threw back his head and cackled. "He's got Crabbe and Goyle transforming into girls? Blimey… No wonder they don't look too happy these days… I'm surprised they don't tell him to go fuck himself…"
"Well, they wouldn't, would they, if he's shown them his Dark Mark?" Harry said like he was stating the obvious.
That was the point at which Hermione decided it was time for her to leave.
"Hmmm," she said dismissively, "the Dark Mark we don't know exists..."
Harry gave her a superior sort of look.
"We'll see," he said boldly.
"Yes, we will," Hermione said. She stood up, picked up her bag, and gave him one final, solemn look, "But, Harry, before you get all excited, I still don't think you'll be able to get into the Room of Requirement without knowing what's there first. And I don't think you should forget that what you're supposed to be concentrating on is getting that memory from Slughorn. Good night."
She darted up to her dormitory, ignoring Harry's look of annoyance.
She tossed and turned in bed for a long time that night. The disquietude she'd been feeling was a raging storm now – her very own Great Red Spot.
Dobby and Kreacher's revelations had added fuel to Harry's mania, and that was worrying enough in itself... yet, she found herself – oh heaven forbid – on the brink of espousing a similar obsession. If Malfoy was indeed the one behind the failed attempts at Dumbledore's life, whatever he was working on in the Room of Requirement was sure to be extremely dangerous. Hermione seriously doubted he was going there to unwind, or to indulge in "poetic bouts of night-time brooding", as Theo had once claimed. And speaking of... she had no option but to talk to Theo again. Now that she had this new bit of information in her arsenal, he wouldn't be able to dismiss her all that easily.
...That is if he would be willing to talk to her at all...
Hermione grumbled to herself, and then flipped over to lie on her belly, pressing her face into her pillow.
"Beauty, truth, and rarity.
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd in cinders lie."
Who was Draco Malfoy? If only he still derided her at every given opportunity... if only he had bombastically threatened to hex her when they'd nearly collided... She knew exactly who that person was.
Who was this cold, haunted, evasive, and scheming shadow? Was he the trap, the trigger, or the hunter?
"...Here enclos'd in cinders lie."
She wondered what he thought of Raskolnikov.
Hermione felt too wound up to stomach anything more than a cup of tea for breakfast. Harry was devising elaborate strategies to break into the room that Malfoy required, and she remained deliberately uninvolved, much to his displeasure.
Ron was eating.
She shot a stealthy glance at the Slytherin table – Malfoy was notably missing; as were Crabbe and Goyle. It was fairly safe to deduce that they was currently up on the seventh floor, just as it was safe to presume that Harry was going to waste his entire morning pointlessly pacing before a wall.
She was shaken out of her ruminations with the arrival of an owl bringing her the Daily Prophet. However, before she could open it out, Harry laid his hand atop it and said, "Look, I haven't forgotten about Slughorn, but I haven't got a clue how to get that memory off him, and until I get a brain wave why shouldn't I find out what Malfoy's doing?"
She was very thankful that he took her reticence to be disapproval, rather than realising that she currently shared his fixation.
"I've already told you, you need to persuade Slughorn," she said, "It's not a question of tricking him or bewitching him, or Dumbledore could have done it in a second. Instead of messing around outside the Room of Requirement" – she yanked the newspaper out from under his hand – "you should go and find Slughorn and start appealing to his better nature."
She left for Ancient Runes soon after, mentally adding layers of resilience to her skin with every step she took. She was torn between wanting the lesson to end as soon as possible, and for it to go on forever.
All of last week she'd chosen to sit beside Terry Boot, so when she settled on her usual seat that day, Theo looked at her in surprise, and then antipathy. Hermione kept her eyes fixed on Professor Babbling; for once, she felt that the woman was living up to her name... but she supposed that was mostly her own fault, owing to the fact that all her attention was focused on the boy sitting next to her, dutifully taking down notes, albeit with a scowl on his face.
Finally, the lesson ended. Theo stood up to leave immediately, but Hermione reached out frantically and grabbed the back of this cloak.
"May I have a word, please?"
Theo eyed the fabric held tightly in her fist until she slowly let go of it.
"Please," she said once more, plaintively.
His aspect was one of cool detachment, the kind he bestowed upon the masses who didn't know him, and whom he didn't care to know.
"Okay," he agreed coolly.
Hermione nodded, and led him out of the classroom to a secluded alcove behind an arras depicting the goblin rebellion of 1752.
"Look," she began... and then took a deep breath, bowed her head, and carried on, "We – that is, Harry, Ron, and I – know that Malfoy's been spending most of his time in the room of requirement. We haven't figured out what he's doing yet, but –"
"You want to talk about Draco!?"
He sounded furious and incredulous, and when Hermione lifted her eyes to look at him, she found that his expression reflected the same.
"Er, yes," she said timidly, "Harry is absolutely determined to find out what –"
"You want," he snarled, "to talk about Draco."
Hermione stared. "Er..."
"Fuck you," he spat, ruthlessly.
And then he stormed away, leaving Hermione alone and unable to breathe.
She ghosted through the next two days in autopilot mode, going from one lesson to the other, skipping meals, and dodging conversations.
She spent the nights curled up on the window seat, trying to read... plaiting and unplaiting her hair...
There was a man whom Sorrow named his Friend,
And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,
Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming
And humming Sands, where windy surges wend:
And he called loudly to the stars to bend
From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they
Among themselves laugh on and sing alway...
"You've really upset him, you know?"
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. "I know."
Approaching Luna had been her last desperate attempt to fix things, now that getting Theo alone on her own was no longer an option.
"I've just been so stupid, Luna. Stupid, and... and... thoughtless. I know I've done a lot of questionable, problematic, and vengeful things, but I've never felt like such a bad person before."
She morosely peered up at the cloudless sky.
"You're not a bad person, Hermione," Luna reproved gently, "You're a little socially inept. So am I, I think, from what I've gathered..."
Hermione smiled sadly at the odd girl with her dirigible plum earrings and strings of cornflowers in her hair.
"...Theo is as well," Luna continued, "We have to band together – there will be a time when the Ministry brings out its mind-controlling tweed caps – (you might remember seeing them in the Department of Mysteries last year) – and we'll be the first ones they come after," Luna leaned forward and tapped her temple, "the so-called eccentric ones."
"He doesn't want to talk to me, Luna."
"Oh, don't worry. I'll tell him to hear you out. He listens to me."
Feeling a touch less burdened than she had in days, Hermione grinned.
"That he does."
Vicious hunger clawed at her insides. Hermione hadn't eaten properly in ages, and on Thursday evening she felt the absence of every single meal she had passed over.
She raced past lamps as they flared to life, eager to reach the Great Hall for dinner.
Suddenly, something latched onto her arm and pulled her into an empty classroom. Hermione yelped in panic, whirled around with her wand raised, ready to...
"Theo?!" she gasped, "What the hell –"
"You wanted to talk," he barked with a sneer, "Go ahead. Talk."
"Oh," Hermione tried to buy herself some time by making a great show of stowing her wand away and catching her breath.
Theo was having none of it.
"Talk," he growled.
"Yes. Yes, okay," Hermione wrung her hands and fixed her gaze on Theo's knee, "I'm just... I'm really sor–"
"What did I do?"
"Huh?"
He turned his back to her and walked a few paces away.
"What. Did. I. Do. Why did you suddenly decide to toss me out of your life?"
"I didn't... that wasn't..."
"Oh save it," he snapped wrathfully, "Something fucking happened. I tried all week to understand... to get you to explain... and you just kept running away from me like I was infected with a particularly gruesome strain of Spattergroit. And now you want to talk? Lovely," he doggedly kept his back to her, "Tell me what I did to suffer your disapproval."
"NOTHING," Hermione wailed desperately, "You didn't do anything! I just... just..."
"Just what? I badgered Ginny endlessly, but she said you've been avoiding her as well. Fucking Potter said –"
"You spoke to Harry?!"
"– POTTER SAID that you're perfectly fine, and are currently busy helping Weasley catch up with his coursework," – He still hadn't turned around – "Is that it then? You got your old chum back, so now you no longer need me around?"
"NO! Theo, no! That's not remotely –"
"You want to talk about Draco? He bloody warned me. Told me you had no room in your life for anyone except your Gryffindor heroes. But I told him he was wrong. Told him that you... you..." Hermione looked woefully at the back of his head as he shook it, "...Fuck. I was even making an effort to get along with your friends. For you. And then what? I'm left to spend my afternoons moaning at sodding Ginny Weasley. Is she supposed to be my consolation prize? What exactly do –"
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE GETTING ALONG SWIMMINGLY," she let drop, tears stinging her eyes.
Theo froze. His entire frame stiffened. And slowly... he turned around... and stared at her.
He got it. He absolutely got it, and Hermione, terrified and shattered, wanted to run away. She wanted to escape the stifling tension in that room and his penetrating gaze.
But he didn't allow her that option. He marched towards her, stony-faced, and gripped her shoulders.
"Have I not –" and then he shook her, hard, "– made it abundantly clear that I am not like those disgracefully flaky tossers you hang around?!" he shook her again, "Have I not proved that I won't bloody abandon you for anything or anyone? Have I not adequately expressed –" another hard shake "– my regard for you? Is it not apparent enough that I –"
"I'M SORRY," Hermione blubbered, crying in earnest, "I'm so... sorry... didn't mean... sorry... just so pathetic... terrible person... I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
She wasn't making any sense. She didn't know how many words she was actually saying, and how many were getting lost among her sobs and gasps.
"Such a stupid girl" she heard, though it was barely above a whisper, and then she found herself being pulled towards him... against him... and he hugged her.
She bawled into his robes, maintaining an erratic litany of "sorry, sorry, sorry..." and he patted her back gently, saying "Shh... shush... enough..."
"Enough," he iterated firmly, pulling away and grasping her shoulders once again, "Calm down."
"Theo. I'm sorry..."
"By Salazar, I heard you the first sixty times, alright? Enough. It's okay..."
"No it isn't!" she sniffed, roughly mopping her cheeks with her fingers, "I'm just so sor –"
"Did I ever tell you exactly how my mother died, Hermione?"
Well, that shut her up.
"Wha- what?"
"I was four. Just a couple of months short of five, actually... so one evening, I was sat in my room when I heard loud crashes and screams coming from downstairs..."
Theo shuddered. He removed his hands from her shoulders, walked over to the nearest chair, and sat down forcibly. He looked far away into the distance; his eyes were unfocused.
"It took me a while to find them – the old ancestral home's rather whopping..." that was the point at which his voice began to quiver, "Father was standing in the dead centre of the parlour, yelling and waving his wand around like a maniac. Furniture was flying about, crashing against the walls... colliding against each other... My mother was cowering in a corner... pleading... I think... I might have called out to her... There was another really loud boom... and that's all. The next thing I know, I'm in Malfoy manor... on Narcissa's lap... in hysterics... My mother was dead," he closed his eyes and sighed; Hermione slapped a hand over her mouth in horror. "They questioned me for hours and in many different ways... I just couldn't remember anything. But... I must've... I had to have seen something, because I've been able to see Thestrals ever since."
"Oh god," Hermione whispered.
He opened his eyes and nodded.
"Now, here's the point: after that day, I spent most of my time with the Malfoys. They practically adopted me – I ate at least one meal a day with them. I was a part of family outings, picnics, trips to Diagon... Narcissa taught me to read, Lucius bought me my first broom... they never missed a birthday... I went with them to France every summer..." he said with a tender smile, "And Draco – bratty, entitled Draco – didn't for a second resent my presence, or the fact that I had claimed some of his parents' attention. If I call him my brother, it's because that's exactly what he is. And yes, I know my brother is involved in something very grave indeed... He isn't going to tell me, Hermione. I've... I've begged, but he just gives me that fucking smirk of his and says 'plausible deniability'. We had a huge row over this about two weeks back. He said he really can't tell me – for my safety, and his safety, and Narcissa's safety. I did, however, make him swear he'd come to me if things got out of hand...
"And I've written to Narcissa eight times, five times to Lucius, interrogated Snape (got me a detention, that), and endured a soul-deadening conversation with Goyle... to no avail. All I can do is keep a close eye on Draco, and make sure he's safe. I can talk to him and keep him sane. I can give him the books you so kindly contribute; I can make sure he eats and sleeps from time to time. And before you ask... No. I'm not going to Dumbledore, or Slughorn, or sodding McGonagall. I will not turn informer against him... not for anything; not ever. Surely you can understand that?"
She did.
For even if he had admitted to being in cahoots with Malfoy... she wouldn't have turned him in. Just like it was when Harry was concerned; she would cast away her supposed morals for Theo, too.
"I do understand," she murmured.
"My world... my family... consists of three people," he said, and finally turned in the chair to look at her fully, "Well... four now, I'd say."
He smiled, shrugged casually, and a sob tore its way out of Hermione's throat, making her spine curve from the force of it.
"Oh come here," he huffed, and when she only took a tentative step forward, he reached out, grabbed her hips, and tugged her closer. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his head against her lower ribs. She softly carded her fingers through his hair. He sighed.
They stayed that way for a long time.
By and by, he slackened his hold.
"Let's go eat," he said while standing up and vanishing the tear-stains on his robes, "The noises your stomach is making are positively feral."
The freshness of early spring lent a beautiful charm to the village of Hogsmeade. Trees sprinkled with bright green leaves gleamed under the resplendent sun, and all the shops had little pots of flowers adorning their windows.
Hermione and Ron strolled towards the square for extra apparition lessons. Ron was jittery with nerves, making him chatty, which was having a rather unfortunate impact on Hermione's once-calm nerves.
"I'm so bloody glad to be out here! Lavender's not going to be of age till late June... Means there's no danger of her ambushing me for the next three hours. Whew!"
Hermione didn't role her eyes – a remarkable show of restraint on her part.
"Seriously, what more can I do? I break every plan we make, skip out on her over and over again... how thick can she be? Why can't some people take a bloody hint?"
"Mmhmm."
Hermione had been glad they were leaving Harry behind... even though it meant he'd be stuck in a self-inflicted exile on the seventh floor. At least she wouldn't have to pretend to brush off the Malfoy issue by building up the Slughorn issue, (although it was obvious that the latter truly did deserve all of Harry's attention at the moment,) but now she really wished he had come with them.
"I don't even let her snog me for more than a minute now –" oh good god "–but it's like she's decided it's all some big challenge for her to overcome. Makes a bloke wonder, you know... what if all girls are like this? Clingy. Needy. It's enough to make a permanent bachelor out of me for sure..."
"Oh look, that's Theo. Hey! Theo!" she called out, waving.
"Huh?!" Ron choked, "What are you – No –"
"Hi, Hermione. ...Weasley." Theo smiled tightly, shooting her a fleeting, questioning look.
"Hi," Hermione said brightly, "Excited about the lesson? Think you'll finally manage to pull it off?"
"Sure. After aaaaall this time we've spent together," Theo slung his arm around her shoulders, "some of your brilliance must have rubbed off on me."
Ron scowled severely with his hands deep in his pockets, and remained adamantly quiet the rest of the way.
XXX
The lesson went rather well. Hermione travelled from point A to B, no problem, all six times. Theo did it three times. Ron overshot – landing up outside Scrivenshaft's Quill shop, rather than Madam Puddifoot's. There was only one instance of splinching: Justin Flinch-Fletchley again, regrettably.
Later, everybody filled into the Three Broomsticks for a celebratory round of drinks. Hermione sat at a corner table with Theo, Ron, and Seamus.
"Bloody weird to be having a pint with you," Seamus muttered to Theo.
"Likewise, er..."
"Seamus Finnigan, ya twat. I'm in four of your classes."
"Right, right. Of course. Finnigan. Sláinte!"
With that, Theo took a long sip of his butterbeer. Seamus watched him with narrowed eyes for a second, before shrugging, raising his glass, and chugging it down.
Their strange little party was interrupted not much later.
"Ms. Granger," Twycross said genially, "You were absolutely spectacular today. I've been conducting these lessons for years; never before have I seen any student grasp the D's so promptly, so firmly –" Theo, Seamus, and Ron were sniggering behind their mugs, "– such fine technique! Your movement in particular is a stroke of genius..."
"Thank you Mr. Twycross, sir," Hermione shut him down before he could inflict any real damage. Seamus was already a worrying shade of purple, and after the man had gone, he bent over laughing.
"Grasp... movement... stroke," he wheezed.
"Very mature, Seamus," Hermione rebuked, taking a dainty sip of her drink.
With a laden tray, Madam Rosmerta approached them, tacitly enquiring if they required refills. She looked dreadfully exhausted, just as she had around Christmas. Her usual coquettish effusiveness was completely lacking, and when they all refused refills, she nodded indifferently.
"Soooo, Rosmerta," Ron spoke in a voice two octaves lower than usual, "Have you heard the joke about the blind healer?"
"No," she replied vacantly.
"Well, see... there's this healer, and he's blind, yeah? One day he was going to perform a tricky boil removal spell on a patient, and –"
"How the hell was he allowed to do that?"
"Bugger off, Seamus. It's a joke. So anyway, Rosmerta, the healer goes up to his patient –"
"This premise is a joke."
"Shut up, Hermione. His patience's a hag –"
"What?! There isn't a hag in all the world who'd want any of her boils removed..."
"Nobody asked you, Nott! His patient, a hag, wanted her facial boil removed. Now, she had a mimbulus mimbletonia plant on her lap –"
"Why the hell –"
"She just did, alright? Shut. Up. She had a mimbulus mimbletonia plant on her lap. The blind healer reached out, feeling his way towards his patient –"
"That's just ridiculous."
"THE WRONG BOIL! HE BURST THE WRONG BOIL, AND THERE WAS STINK SAP EVERYWHERE!" Ron roared, panting furiously.
The entire pub fell silent.
"That wasn't funny," Madam Rosmerta stated, and drifted away.
Ron grimaced in mortification. He could barely look at his three compatriots, but did manage to muster the pluck to demand: "Not. One. Word."
In all fairness, they abided by that request. Not one of them spoke a single word. They did, however, laugh uproariously, until their faces were red and their eyes were watering.
On the walk back to the castle, Theo and Seamus broke into an improvised, largely nonsensical and explicitly lewd ditty about hags, healers, and boil covered D's. Ron sulked, kicking up an unnecessary amount of dirt with every step he took.