Being Ron Part 5
Sprawled out on his stomach, legs overhanging the sides of the bed, and mouth open and half crushed into the pillow, lay Ron.
The room suddenly filled with sunshine and his face scrunched up as he tried to burrow down into the mattress like a cockroach scurrying away from the light.
"Time to get up if you want a nice big breakfast before work Ronnie!" His mum was being way too loud and mum-like.
"Ughhhhhh," Ron groaned into the pillow and rolled away from any encouragement to get up, "fi'mre'minutes."
"The toast will have gone cold and your eggs are perfect and waiting for you." She said with that manipulative way of hers.
"That's not fair," Ron grumbled and pushed himself up on his elbows, hair sticking out all over the place and shielding his eyes from the sun, "that's food blackmail."
"Black pudding actually."
He sat right up and peered at her through his fringe.
"Really?"
"You're my genius, you deserve the breakfast of a king!" She beamed.
Ron rolled his eyes and slumped again.
"There I was thinking I was getting a full English because you loved me and all you care about his my brain."
She laughed and ruffled his hair.
"I love you for your beautiful face as well you know?" She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.
"Ugh, mum!" Ron wiped his face with the back of his hand and threw back the covers. "All right, I'm coming."
Pig flew into the back of his head as he crossed the room and he tripped over the flapping leg of his pyjamas as they slipped down almost completely over his bottom.
"Or maybe it's your graceful movement," his mum teased while he chuckled and wiped the sleep from his eyes.
"I'm like a gazelle, I am." Ron yawned and padded his way towards the bathroom for a nice long morning wee, hitching up his pyjama bottoms as he went.
There had been drinking at Ron's I'm an unexpected genius party the day before and he hadn't quite got his head together yet. He remembered that he'd had his hands on Gabrielle a lot. He was touching her and she was grinning a lot.
Oh right, she was grinning a lot because they were going to have a naughty night in Hogsmeade in a couple of days.
They'd done lots of naughty things before, things his mother would deem naughty, and they had seen each other naked lots of times and slept in the same bed. He'd touched Gabrielle's private parts and she'd touched his.
Their parts weren't private anymore.
They were far from public parts. They were exclusive parts at the very least. They had exclusive access to each other's parts. Ron realised that he'd stopped weeing but was still holding his most exclusive part of all in his hand.
He glanced around, guiltily, and then thought about making sure his part was in full working order before realising that the bathroom mirror had a big mouth. He gave a tut and opted to was his hands and leave for breakfast instead.
He could have sworn he heard the mirror snigger.
He'd been thinking about the bit where they usually stopped and went to sleep. The bit after the kissing and touching and breathing, always so much heavy breathing, and now they were going to carry on to do the bit that's supposed to come before falling asleep.
He'd thought about it and Gabrielle was so excited about it and he'd drunk a bit too much. At some point he felt sure he'd tried to confide in Harry.
Ron suddenly rubbed his head and closed his eyes with a groan.
Oh Merlin's testis, did he confide in Harry that he was a virgin?
"Feeling rough are we, son?" Arthur put an arm around his shoulders and walked him to his seat at the kitchen table. "Get this lot down you and you'll be fine."
Fred and George were there. Why were Fred and George there? Did Fred and George know? If Fred and George knew he would kill himself.
"HELLO LITTLE BROTHER!" George bellowed into the side of Ron's head while wafting a slice of fried bread between them.
"HOW'S OUR FAVOURITE IDIOT SAVANT THIS MORNING?" Fred boomed into the other side of his face with his mouth full of partially masticated bacon.
"Ugh, you're disgusting...and evil."
"Like a naked Umbridge oiling a naked Fudge with partially melted lard," Fred said with a grin.
Ron shuddered, George looked at his twin and shook his head to let him know a revolting line had been crossed, and their father covered his eyes and moaned at the image now in his head.
"Why would you do that to anyone Fred? Why anyone but especially your loved ones?"
"He's evil," Ron muttered before puncturing the yolk of his friend egg and dipping the corner of his toast into it.
"Yet you can still eat," George said with a resigned shake of the head.
"It's not food's fault," Ron said with a shrug.
He ate for a minute before relaxing in the knowledge that the twins weren't about to torment him about his upcoming deflowering. Relaxing in the Weasley family is always a mistake.
A hand on his shoulder, a long curtain of red hair, and an amused whisper in his ear made everything clench again.
"I hope you're going to use protection young man. As your older sibling I'll be very disappointed if you get her pregnant first time."
Oh shit, Gabs had told Fleur and Fleur had told Bill and now he had to talk about sex with his big brother!
"Uh, Bill," he began as he turned his head and whispered back with urgency. He jumped when he saw Ginny's grinning face and inch from his. "Shit! Gin, what the fu-"
"You youngsters, I don't know," she sighed and shook her head as she ruffled his hair the same was Charlie always did.
"Gerroff," Ron swatted at her hand and turned in his chair to hiss his panic stricken question at her, "how d'you know?"
"You told me," Ginny said with a beaming smile and the eyes of a Weasley about to make you dance to their tune.
"I would never have told you!"
"Well you did," she said, smugly.
"Why?"
"Because I'm older than you and it's my job to protect your honour and keep you from being taken advantage of," she didn't managed to finish the sentence without disintegrating into giggles and then pulling up a chair to force between Ron and Fred's chair.
"I'm older than you." Ron waggled his finger in her face, "I'm still older than you."
"No, no, no, you're the baby of the family and I have to bump my chest against any woman who comes near you and threaten them because you're so naive and vulnerable."
"You've made your point," Ron grumbled and cut into his bacon rasher.
Ginny shunted Fred further aside with her own chair as she forced it up to the table beside Ron and picked up a piece of toast.
"You were trying to tell Harry but Harry was drunk and thick and didn't get it." She buttered her toast and watched Ron impaling a piece of black pudding, tomato and egg on his fork. "I got it though."
He pushed the food into his mouth and chewed. The twins realised that they weren't going to eavesdrop on anything good and left the table with unanimous disappointment.
"And I think you are wonderful."
Ron almost choked on his mouthful, forcing it down and making his eyes water, before gaping at her.
"I'm really proud of you," she said with a smile.
Ron looked around in suspicion and Ginny rolled her eyes and picked up the fork from Fred's plate and stabbed the extendable ear that was flopping its way along the floor towards them.
"Seriously and with nobody listening," she said with a firm tone, "I understand why you were the way you were with my boyfriends now. I thought you were a hypocrite but you're really...you're just a proper gentleman."
Ron cleared his throat and turned his attention to downing his whole cup of tea in one go.
"The standards you expected from my boyfriends were the standards you held yourself to, and I respect that."
Ron wanted to put a tea cosy over his head and hide from all sight and sound. He pondered the invention of an invisibility tea cosy.
"If you need somebody to talk to, if you're worried about anything, you can talk to me." She patted the back of his hand.
"I can't talk to you, you're my sister!" Ron stared at her as if she'd gone insane.
Ginny rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Well try to talk to Harry again, now that he's sober, and if you ever need a woman's view then give the idea of talking to me a try."
"But I'm not gonna see Harry until..." Ron made a head nodding gesture to one side. It was as if he was silently motioning towards the near future.
"Okay, well I hear you've been getting on very well with Hagrid."
Ron's face fell and his snarled at her through gritted teeth.
"That's not even funny!"
Ginny struggled not to prove him wrong but her stifled giggles weren't stifled enough.
"I thought you weren't gonna take the piss." Ron grumbled.
"I'm not, you're just so difficult."
Ginny poured him another cup of tea and they sat and picked at his breakfast for a little while longer before the inevitable name came up.
"Could you talk to Hermione?"
"No," Ron said without hesitation, "no she...uh...just no."
"But you've both moved on and she said your friendship was back on track and everything was really good again. You've been talking to each other without all the sexual tension."
"And what better way to celebrate that then talking about sex, eh?" Ron pointed out with a ragged hiss, still paranoid that the twins had more than one kind of ear in the room.
Ginny shook her head.
"Well if you don't talk to somebody you'll end up talking yourself out of it. I know what you're like."
"No you don't," Ron said, frowning, "you only just found out I'm a gentleman."
She leaned over and kissed his temple.
"I always knew you were a gentleman, deep down."
"Assignments for today, pupil escort to greenhouses and Care of Magical Creatures lessons, are mine. Perimeter of the castle goes to Moyer," Lillycrap paused to nod towards one of his cronies, who looked fairy pissed off to get the job Ron had done all the previous week.
"You're on guard duty outside the headmistress' office" he waited for the young Auror to nod before going on, "and the rest of you are patrolling the corridors and providing escorts when professors ask for it."
Ron realised that this was his thank you for sparing Lillycrap the examination of the dead body with the Aurors. While the job was an improvement, he was still the outsider that nobody spoke to.
He'd make the most of the single step forward in his circumstances and just get on with it. When he passed Hermione in the corridors she'd smile and he'd remember Ginny advising him to talk to her about what was on his mind.
She thought it was off his mind a long time ago.
Of course she did. After the Quidditch match they'd flown to Griffindor tower and gone to his room together. Together alone and in his bed.
Then a summer in France together, what else would she have thought?
Ron began to ponder on the boyfriends Hermione had gone out with while he was gone all that time.
They were bound to have been serious blokes and serious relationships that lasted years because serious people don't have frivolous dates. Then they would have had serious sex.
He couldn't expect a woman like Hermione to have a grown up boyfriend for a year, two years, maybe more, and just hold hands.
Over the last year at school he'd grown close to Gabrielle and bonded with her over exams and lessons, Quidditch and family. Hermione would have found herself maturing and bonding and she had five years.
Ron couldn't feel hard done by. He shouldn't feel hard done by. So why was he trying so bloody hard not to feel that way?
He hadn't been cheated on or betrayed. He had a girlfriend and he'd not finished it with school to go back to Hermione. It wasn't as if he was going back really, he was never there with her in the first place after all, but he'd chosen not to pursue her.
He didn't think about her very much at all in France. He hadn't seen her at the Burrow and thought he'd made a mistake. It had been gradual, different.
It had been because she was his friend again, and she was an amazing friend. That was who he'd been attracted to in the first place, not Hermione Granger, but his friend.
At school she'd stopped being his friend, just his friend, and had to change who she was to him and how she was as well. Now that was over she was there, his Hermione, his friend.
He was seeing who he used to see again and it was because she was exactly who she was before he vanished. She was his best friend.
"Ron?"
He flinched out of his thoughtfulness and realised that Lupin must have tried more than once to get his attention.
"Oh, sorry!" he laughed, embarrassed.
"You looked very focused, in a not looking where you were going sort of way," Lupin said with a smile. "Everything all right?"
Ron took a moment before answering and looked at him. Was he yet another person who'd noticed the Aurors didn't like him and was taking pity.
"Yeah, fine."
"Sorry to interrupt you on the job but I have a work related favour to ask of you."
"Oh right, yeah, what do you need?" Ron cleared his head with a shake and gave Lupin his full attention.
"I'm taking my NEWT class into the forest tonight, Minerva has granted me permission as long as I have an Auror with me."
Ron nodded.
"I think it'll be okay, I mean it's a Hogwarts duty and that's what I'm authorised to do. Maybe I should check, though."
"You can use the fireplace in my office if you want to floo the department," Lupin offered.
Ron scratched his nose. He'd actually intended to find Lillycrap and ask him. Realising this was what he was planning to do made him feel a little stupid. The other Aurors were trainees just like him. They weren't in charge, they just acted like they were better than him.
"Yeah, thanks," Ron nodded and followed Lupin along the corridor.
He had to stop acting like an insubordinate. He was their equal and should be aiming to be their better. Why on earth was he going to ask that prick, Lillycrap for permission to do his job?
Fuck them all if the fact Lupin asked him to do it and not them. Fuck them all. He didn't need them to like him, the sods.
"So what are you teaching them?" Ron asked.
"Whatever comes at them will be what they learn about. There might be three things at once, it might be totally uneventful, or we might be run over by a feral car."
Ron sniggered.
"Um, yeah."
"Expect the unexpected, that's the lesson, and you've been in there enough times to have experienced most of the unexpected yourself."
"We're not going anywhere near Aragog and his lot," Ron said with a warning glance.
"And you know where that is and can steer the class away," Lupin said with a tired smile, "it's why I wanted you to escort us and not the others. They've never even been in there once, what good are they going to be?"
Ron nodded to himself.
"Yeah, I'm not getting special treatment, I'm just the best man for the job."
"Special treatment?" Lupin snorted. "That was special, walking around the castle every night last week, was it?"
Ron laughed and Lupin unlocked the door to his office and showed Ron inside.
While it was a little embarrasing, or would have been if he ever let anybody know it had happened, Ron couldn't help but smile as he stuffed the small bundle, wrapped in crumpled brown paper, into his pocket. Hagrid had made him sandwiches. He chuckled to himself and tried to straighten his face as the seventh years approached with their teacher.
It wasn't as if the sandwich would be edible anyway, he thought.
"Here's our Auror for the evening," Lupin announced. "We're lucky to have a guardian who has plenty of experience in the forest. The only person who knows it better is Hagrid himself."
"Firenze wouldn't agree with that," Ron said as he lit the tip of his wand and glanced over his shoulder into the trees.
"What do we hope to see tonight, Ro... Auror Weasley?" Lupin corrected himelf.
"Hope?" Ron said with eyebrows raising. "Well if you go into the forbidden forest you should always hope you don't see anything. You've had a lucky break if you don't see anything at all."
"Very true," Lupin turned to his class. "Can you believe the hypocrisy of this man? He's telling us not to go looking for trouble!"
Everybody laughed and Ron suddenly remembered his own reputation. He'd been so used to being ignored that he forgot that, to some people, he was quite notorious."
"Well we could hope to see some unicorns," Ron conceded.
"Unicorn." A student piped up.
"There's more than one in there," Ron said as he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder towards the forest.
"No sir," the small young man said, throwing Ron with the whole 'sir' thing for a moment, "it's like sheep, one unicorn, two unicorn."
"It's unicorns," a familiar know-it-all voice called out from behind the students.
The crowd turned and looked at Professor Granger.
"Well now I know why all your essays have no plurals," she said to the diminutive student.
"Are you joining us, Professor Granger?" Lupin asked her. "You have just as much experience in these woods as our Auror here."
"Not quite," she said, "I didn't break the rules like my friends did."
Ron snorted loudly and then pretended he was coughing. The students sniggered. Hermione shook her head back and lifted her chin with defiance.
"I came to visit my friend, Hagrid. Playing silly beggars in the forest is behind me now."
Ron smirked.
"Go on, you know it's fun," he teased her, "you led an expedition in there before. Umbridge loved it!"
Hermione tried not to laugh but soon gave in.
"Why not?" She said with a sigh of resignation.
"Light your wands, stay alert, and do whatever Auror Weasley says." Lupin's words were firm and clear.
He took the rear, Hermione walked alongside the students, and Ron went ahead of the group. He felt slightly nervous about something leaping out at him and his brave scream of terror showing him up as the coward he was.
"Would you like to hold my hand?" He heard Hermione asking a trembling Ravenclaw girl.
He glanced back and smiled at her. She smiled back and squeezed the girl's hand.
"Being frightened isn't anything to be ashamed of."
"That's easy for you to say, Professor, you're head of Gryffindor."
"Being brave comes hand in hand with being scared y'know?" Hermione said. "If you walked in here unafraid then it wouldn't be a brave thing to do...you'd also be amazingly stupid!"
Both witches laughed and Ron felt proud of Hermione. She was such a good teacher. As a student she found it hard to be liked but as a teacher her compassion for others and love of learning and teaching had her in her element. She was a natural because she always had the belief in people that they could do better.
She was right too. Gryffindors weren't fearless, they were terrified of lots of things, but bravery comes alongside fear. On the outside people could be seen as perfect but the truth of things was that you can only have perfection with a few flaws.
If he was to be an Auror people would look at him as he was cool, aloof and better than ordinary folk.
That's how the Malfoys thought of themselves.
The perfect Auror was a human being who could be scared, who could mess things up but fix their mistakes, and who could be as normal as any decent witch or wizard.
Ron pulled the package of sandwiches from his pocket and looked at them.
"What's that, Auror Weasley, is it a weapon?"
"I don't doubt it for a second," Ron said, smiling down at the brown paper bag, then turning to look at the lanky Hufflepuff who'd asked the question. "These are the sandwiches Hagrid made me for tonight."
The young men, clearly wrong footed that the tough guy they were trying to impress had just told them that he had a packed lunch made for him but the soppy Care of Magical Creatures teacher, gaped at him. Some of the girls giggled.
"He didn't make me any sandwiches!" Lupin said, feigning hurt feelings.
"Me neither," Hermione folded her arms across her chest and huffing.
"I suppose I'm his favourite then." Ron smirked. "Bad luck you two. I have a boulder made of bread to fend off any ravenous Crumple-Horned Snorkacks while you'll just have to use each other as shields."
Some of the group laughed and several of the boys smiled and relaxed. It wasn't going to be a masculinity contest after all.
Good thing too, Ron thought, because as soon as he saw a spider he'd be hiding behind Hermione's cloak until she got rid of it for him.
