Being Ron Part 2
Ron had been on duty for eight hours, walking laps around the castle until Fang knocked him to the ground out of the blue and Hagrid stood over him with a bright lantern.
"Wha' yer still doing patrolling the grounds, Ron?"
"They told me to cover the perimeter until I was sent word everything was secure," Ron answered, hoping that Hagrid was being thick-headed again and not that he'd just been taken for a mug.
"Oh yeh daft sod, they must've forgot, the front doors were locked and all students are in their common rooms. They 'ave been fer a good two, three, hours now."
Ron's head fell.
"Right."
"Maybe they didn't think o'it because yer stayin' wi' me. Y'weren't missed...I mean teh say, it weren't tha' yeh were unaccounted fer, what wi' yeh bein..."
"I'm not one of them so they didn't give a shit if I knew patrol was over," Ron said, dejectedly.
Hagrid pulled Ron up from the ground by the front of his robes and then patted him with an uncharacteristic light touch on the back.
"Let's go 'ome."
"Yeah," Ron said as they set off walking.
Hagrid pulled a flask out from his hairy coat and handed it to Ron.
"Tea?"
"Ta."
They walked in silence, Fang snuffling along behind them, while Ron poured and drank two cups of sweet milky tea.
"Ermione 'ad a word wi' me." Hagrid's voice broke the silence eventually and Ron was snapped out of his introspective gloom.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Told me tha' y'were worried I might be making yer an outcast wi' yer new Auror friends."
"I bet she didn't say that," Ron said with a rueful shake of the head and a small smile.
"No, she was right tactful, but you shoulda said it tha' way teh me if y'were worried. I'd never want teh ruin yer chances at fittin' in."
"Being Harry's friend is gonna do that for me I think," Ron admitted. "They were already thinking of me as having special treatment before they even met me. Kingsley said so too. I'm buggered if I try to prove myself to them and I'm..."
"Screwed if yeh don't?"
Ron smiled at Hagrid properly this time. Hagrid slapped his hand on Ron's back with the same weighty over generosity as usual. Ron stumbled forward a few steps and Fang began to lope ahead as the glow from the hut grew brighter and larger.
"I am glad I'm staying with you, Hagrid," Ron said as he folded his arms tightly across his chest, "'cause right now I can't imagine the humiliation of walking into that tent with them waiting for me."
"You got friends 'ere, they ain't got no one but each other an' they're as good as strangers, an' you got more experience in your school years then they'll get in any o'their trainin' and guard duty on a safe school."
"I also got...I mean I've also missed five years. Everybody grew and learned and there's five years of history and changes I wasn't around for. I'm some school kid who doesn't know anything new. Doesn't know anything at all."
"Didn't stop yeh doin' well in yer exams did it? Didn't stop yeh winning the Quidditch cup. Didn't stop yeh gettin' a lovely girl like yer Gabrielle."
Ron smiled.
"Stopped me being able to be with my first lovely girl though didn't it?"
Hagrid stopped walking and stared at Ron's hunched back until he stopped plodding along and turned to look back at his giant friend.
"Y'know," Hagrid began, paused and then started walking with Ron again, "the older yeh get, the less those five years'll matter. I know they mattered a lot last year. She coulda lost 'er job and you were still a lad at school wi' pretty things 'is own age seemin' teh be a better fit, but..."
"Gabrielle wasn't like Lavender," Ron said firmly. "She's not like that. I'm not using her, I really like her."
"I never said tha' now did I?" Hagrid said with a change of tone, less thoughtful and more plain speaking. "She's what you needed. Everybody went ahead without yeh and left yeh behind an' she caught yeh up. She's a good girl an' a great friend t'yeh. Yeh'd have been lonely last year without her. All your friends grown up an' gone."
"She's not just convenient though," Ron said, firmly.
"I know tha'. Yer not shallow an' nobody thinks y'are."
Fang was scratching at Hagrid's door, impatiently.
Ron searched the darkness, thoughtfully.
"Ron?"
"Gabs never thought of me as a teaspoon. She thinks I'm like...a ladle or something. It feels better when your girlfriend thinks your a ladle."
Hagrid pushed open the door to his hut and stepped aside to guide Ron in with a light push against his back.
"Maybe y'need teh lie down after all tha' walkin' on an empty stomach. I saved yeh some food from dinner. You 'ave a kip an' I'll heat it up fer yeh."
Ron sat on the footstool part of his makeshift bed and looked up at Hagrid, glumly.
"She's the only place I fit in these days."
"Yeh fit right in at Hogwarts," Hagrid said, warmly, "an' yeh always fit right in 'ere. Those Auror wannabes aren't worth yer-"
Ron's stomach grumbled and they both sniggered.
"They definitely ain't worth yeh goin' hungry!"
Ron got up from the footstool and followed Hagrid to the table, where three platters were covered in cloths, waiting for him to take his pick from the leftovers.
Harry had been waiting for the owls to arrive from Ron, bemoaning how boring routine Hogwarts patrols were, but after three days nothing had turned up and Harry couldn't help but feel a little put out.
"You want him to get bored of Auror duty?" Hermione frowned down at her friend's face as it bobbed up and down in the flames of her fireplace.
"No, not bored of being an Auror, just...not having as much fun as he would be with me."
"I'd hardly say he was having fun, Harry. He's taking this very seriously." Hermione assured him.
This didn't make him feel the least bit better.
"Ron, taking something seriously? Ron who we both know? Ron who is still a teenager? That Ron?"
"Yes, our Ron. Our teenage Ron who didn't have a frivolous adolescence and grew up just as fast as we did. The Ron who didn't think he'd live to see his twenties, is taking his brand new and first ever job seriously."
"But what about out of hours? Does he spend time with you?"
"I have marking and lesson plans when he's not on duty. I also take my job seriously."
Harry narrowed his eyes at her.
"You take Ron even more seriously and you know everything about him while he's there don't you?"
"I am not spying on my good friend like an obsessed ex girlfriend, Harry Potter!"
"So he's not seen much of Hagrid either then, no?"
"On the contrary, he's spending every moment he's not on duty with hi-" Hermione stopped, scowled at Harry's smug face and then huffed. "Very well, I've asked after him, like a friend would, and Hagrid says...Ron's working very hard and doing very well."
"And?"
"And eating like Grawp after a fast."
"And?"
"And finding the chair comfortable enough to sleep on."
"And?" Harry practically growled.
"I'm not telling you." Hermione folded her arms and looked away.
"Oh now you have to!"
"I don't, I won't, and that's an end to it."
"Right, I'm coming through, move out the way." Harry's shoulders began to emerge from the flames and Hermione shoved him back with both hands.
"He won't thank you for waving a big flag around him, bellowing that he deserves special treatment because he's your friend, and singling him out even more!"
Harry looked furious.
"So that's it! I knew the others would be gits to him, I fucking knew it!"
"He's a big boy, bigger than both of us, and he won't thank you. Let him prove himself."
"But..."
"Hagrid's been great with him. He's doing really well." Hermione assured him.
"But..."
"I'll pop over and see him tomorrow, give him another friendly face, I promise everything's fine."
Harry looked downcast.
"He already protected Hogwarts, from the inside, it's not fair that he should do donkey work like the rest of them." He grumbled.
"But he wants to be like the rest of them. He has to be just like every other Auror otherwise how can he work with them as a team or even as a leader?"
Harry sulked. It was because she was right. It was also because he hated that Ron was having a hard time and he was of no help to the situation whatsoever.
"Hey, Weasley, you 'guarding' the Quidditch match on Friday?"
Ron gave a smile and a discreet wave to one of the seventh year Ravenclaws who he'd played against the year before.
"Move along there, chop chop," he said as he waved them onward.
The student laughed and straightened his back as he set off in a formal march down the corridor.
"Hi Ron!"
"Cool robes Ron."
"Ron, how's Gabrielle?"
"Are you here to maintain security or to pal around with your mates?" One of the other Aurors snapped from behind him.
"I'm maintaining the security of people who happen to know my name," Ron said, biting back hiss temper as much as he could.
"Well maybe you should disguise yourself as a proper Auror in future," the spiteful little twerp sneered.
Just as Ron's ears were about to betray him by bursting into flames of humiliation McGonagall passed by.
"Kevin Lillycrap, you're one of the Auror team too?"
"Uh, yes, professor."
McGonagall blinked once, sniffed and then shook her head.
"Amazing. I mean Weasley here only just passed his exams and yet you've managed to get into the same programme despite failing yours dismally two years in a row. However did you manage it?"
Ron almost choked on his delight. Lillycrap looked as if he wanted to dig himself a hole to hurl himself into.
"I enrolled in a special...course, over last summer, and got enough passes to join the training programme." Lillycrap answered, head almost steaming with embarrassment.
"Oh, the remedial summer NEWTs. Well done. An d how many times did you take that before passing?"
Lillycrap looked as if he wished McGonagall was a Death Eater so he could hex her on the spot, or at least gag her, but was saved as one of his fellow smug bastards called for him to escort some first years to Greenhouse three for Herbology.
He mumbled his excuses and fled from the fiercely judgemental witch before she could crush him any more.
Ron bit both lips from the inside to keep from laughing and McGonagall wiggled her eyebrows at him.
"I agree with the students, it is nice to see you, Weasley."
Ron nodded and made a muffled sound and she left him without another word. He'd almost cart-wheeled back to Hagrid's hut at the end of his watch and playfully wrestled with Fang as they staggered through the door.
While man and beast clattered into a footstool the size of a small table, a small owl whizzed around them and hooted enthusiastically.
Ron, finally pinned beneath Fang's bulky folds of furry flesh, yanked an arm free and grabbed Pig from the air. He manipulated the roll of parchment from the bird's leg, with a much practiced dexterity, and then shook it open.
"Gerroff Fang, you're flattening me!" He grunted as he attempted to roll the dog off him while reading the letter and smiling to himself.
"Maybe I could coax him off you with some of this alarming meat?"
Ron jumped at the sound of Hermione's voice and Fang's weight left his body to lollop over to greet her.
"Oh hi!" Ron grinned as he staggered up from the floor. "I was just...getting beaten up by a fifteen stone dog."
She laughed and then plucked a purple veined piece of steak from a smelly stack of something surrounded by buzzing flies and threw it to Fang. The dog wolfed it down, happily, and Ron brushed himself down and then set the crumpled letter onto the table before turning to make a pot of tea.
"You looked very professional," she said, as she sat down on an oversized chair and stroked Pig's dishevelled feathers, "only an Auror could have put up such a brave resistance."
Ron smiled and rolled his eyes.
"I keep telling myself I'm paying my dues," he said as he leaned against the wall and waited for the water to boil, "the thing is, I never thought I had that many dues to pay for. What do I need all those dues for, anyway? If I just send them back I'll have less to pay off, right?"
"Hard luck," Hermione scoffed, "I had to pay mine when I became a teacher and I hadn't acquired any dues. I put in the work, I passed the exams, I read all the books...but I still had those pesky dues to pay for."
Ron laughed and then remembered the letter on the table. He leaned forward, picked it up, and crammed it into his back pocket without folding it.
"Was I interrupting? I can leave you in peace if you like?" Hermione offered, tilting her head towards the door.
"No, just a letter from Gabs, I'll read it later." Ron turned to busy himself with the teapot again.
"How is she?"
"Dunno, I didn't read past the opening platypus," Ron said, smirking to himself.
"Platitudes," Hermione corrected, tutting and throwing a knowing smile his way. "If I didn't know better I'd swear you got things wrong just to have me correct you."
"Would I do that?" Ron said with a laugh as he looked over his shoulder at her with a wide grin of admission.
"You used to do it all the time. You may be an Auror now but you're still Ron."
Ron's smile faded and he drummed his fingers against the biscuit tin, impatiently
"Still being Ron is kinda...a pain when it comes to being an Auror actually."
She didn't say a word. They both knew she understood exactly what he meant. She'd kept quiet to let Ron know she was willing to act as though there was nothing wrong if that was what he wanted.
"Maybe Lillycrap was right," he went on, "I should have probably thought about training in disguise. I'd have just been one of them that way."
"Do you want to be one of them or do you want to be exceptional?" Hermione asked him as the kettle began to whistle. "Because when you're you, you're exceptional."
"You're biased," Ron said as his ears blushed.
"I'm not," Hermione said, holding back on something and then relaxing a little to say it again. "I assure you, I'm not."
"You were gonna say 'but' weren't you?" Ron said with a half smile that didn't travel across the rest of his face.
"I was going to say 'despite', actually."
"Despite what?" Ron lifted the kettle, filled the teapot and then folded his arms to wait for her to answer.
"Despite the fact you left me for a younger model," she began, "I still think very highly of you."
Ron swallowed and stared at her.
"It...It wasn't because you got olde-"
"Even when I see you kissing somebody else I think well of you, and that means I can't be bias. I'm right to think highly of you because you've always given me good reason to."
Ron felt Gabrielle's letter burning in his pocket and his throat choking on all the things he wanted to admit to Hermione.
"I don't want things to be awkward," she said as he squirmed, "let's just have some tea."
"You're the same Hermione to me," Ron blurted, turning to face her full on and clutching the biscuit tin with both hands. "Er...Bourbon?"
He held out the tin and Hermione shook her head.
"No thanks."
"You're not an old woman...you were always older than me anyway...and you were always more mature. But you were Professor Granger and, that's very you and it suits you and everything, but I wasn't guarding your class I was in it."
"It was inappropriate, we both agreed that." She nodded.
They shared a moment of silence before Ron held the tin out again.
"Custard Cream?"
"No thank you."
"Because I know you waited for me and I should have waited for you but I barely spent any time with you and I was with Gabs every day and she's a really great person and she made me fit in and...just fit...again. Chocolate Hob Nob?"
"I know and I'm not angry that we didn't, no thank you by the way, become more after school ended. It was still very inappropriate."
"But I don't care about inappropriate," Ron said admitted, "I'm me, I'm always inappropriate." He paused for her to laugh, which she did. "We just weren't the same and...we were never gonna be were we?"
Hermione looked taken aback at this.
"What?"
"You were always so much more sophisticated than me. If I hadn't disappeared for five years we'd have split up by now because you've leapt so far ahead of anything I could have been."
"You know that kind of talk makes me angry," she warned.
"I know I can be better. I know I'll show 'em all, those gits in that tent out there, but if I hadn't had to spend a year on my own I'd never have had the balls to be alone at all."
Hermione looked as if she understood, she didn't like understanding but she understood, and tucked her hair behind her ear with a single nod.
"No matter what you say, Ron, I know you'd have been a great man had you not gone away. And to call me sophisticated is laughable. I'm a bookish spinster, not a glamour-puss." She laughed as she looked away.
Ron found himself clinging to the biscuit tin and set it down. He scratched the back of his hand and then pulled the lid off the tin. The lid made a rattling noise as he put it down and he peered inside.
"He's got Garibaldis." He said, eyebrows lifting.
"Are you sure they're Garibaldis and not just cream crackers with dead insects squashed onto them."
"I'm sure I'd rather chance one of them than one of these fig rolls," he said as he lifted out a suspiciously oozing biscuit.
They shared a chuckle. Ron sat down and then remembered the tea stewing in the pot. He was about to get up again but Hermione offered and began pouring the brew.
"You're pure class, y'know Hermione?" Ron suddenly spoke up.
"It's only tea," she chuckled.
"No, I mean," Ron shuffled forward on his seat, "I can get a pretty girl who's way out of my league. Weasleys are lucky like that, we get some beautiful women thinking we're worthwhile, but the classy ones... me and you are a different class."
Hermione set his cup of tea down before him and looked at him with the same troubled authority she'd had the year before.
"Didn't anybody ever tell you all that glitters isn't gold?"
"Glisters," Ron said, unable to help himself.
Hermione stared, beamed and then dropped down into her seat, clutching her cup of tea.
"Don't tell me you have no class. Now gimme a biscuit."
