Ron huffed and looked around, but he couldn't see where the two had disappeared off to.
"Great, Hermione. You managed to scare off the only thing interesting happening around here." Ron threw a glare at her, but her eyes held a far-off look and she was staring down some corridor.
"My god-father is trying to kill me," Harry murmured behind them.
Ron kicked at ground, making a squeaking noise as his trainer scuffed - no one seemed to be listening to him. Not that that was anything new. No one ever listened to Ron Weasley, brother of The Twins or The Prefect or The Dragon Trainer, or, even better, best friend of The Harry Potter. Neither of them replied to Harry and that gave Ron some kind of twisted satisfaction. Surely they would run into the Winchesters again. Ron led them, knowing Harry and Hermione were too far into their own worlds to get themselves to class.
"Bloody hell," Ron breathed out and stopped for a moment. What was the world coming to when he was the one making sure they get to class? Harry and Hermione bumped into him and stopped but didn't even bother to question Ron. Maybe he would just stand here until one of them came to and realized they were in the middle of a corridor, doing nothing but collecting dust and maybe they ought to get to potions.
Ron shook his head fiercely, gravely wishing those words never echoed in his mind again – they felt as dirty and grimy as Snape's hair. Finally, he noticed they weren't alone. Pale as – well, a ghost, Neville stood there, ten feet into a side corridor, shaking and mumbling under his breath. Ron bristled, alert for danger around any corner. You never knew with this school. Almost immediately, though, he relaxed and stepped forward. This was Neville Longbottom – he still got scared by the Bloody Baron.
Ron reached out and beckoned Neville. "Come on, mate, we've got to get to potions." Not that that would make him feel any better. It was quite possible that the only person Snape picked on more than Harry was Neville. Neville just stood there, his feet minutely shuffling without making any actual progress. Sighing in annoyance and knowing that no one else was going to get anything done about it, Ron stepped forward and locked his arm with Neville's before dragging him forward. "Come on, then, tell us what happened."
After starting to move, Neville looked up at Ron as if this was the first time he had seen him. "Ron," he dropped off after that, as if that lone word was enough of an exclamation. Ron sighed and led his train of wanderers downwards towards the dungeons.
"Yes, Neville, it's me, mate. What happened to make you look like that? – stark raving mad, it seemed."
Neville barely paid attention to the slight. "The Winchester brothers – Dean and Sam? I saw them."
Everything stopped. Ron did, so thus did Neville. And this time, neither following body hit him. Ron turned around to see two pairs of very attentive eyes.
"What about Sam, Neville?" Hermione stepped forward and asked, placing her hand on Neville's elbow in a comforting gesture. If you ask Ron, she hadn't looked more threatening to Neville since she stunned him in first year.
"Well, I heard them talking and-" Neville stopped and tilted his head towards Hermione. "You told them we were sixteen?"
"What the bloody hell, Hermione?" Ron had no clue why he was so enraged by this but he was. Hermione had lied, that was wrong, wasn't it? He looked at Harry for support but got nothing but a seeming equal reproach for everyone in this conversation.
Hermione had the decency to blush. "Well, it's not that big of an exaggeration-"
"We're in third year, Hermione. Thirteen years old!" Ron cut her off, exclaiming.
Her eyes narrowed and venom leaked through her words, promising awful things that a basilisk fang wouldn't dream of doing. "I am fourteen, Ronald. My birthday was in September, thank you very much."
Ron looked down at his trainers and kicked again. That was beside the point, wasn't it?
"So did you see anything else, Neville?" Ron turned towards Neville, knowing enough from chess to pick his battles and retreat from a clearly losing one.
Neville took a deep gulp of air and nodded furiously. "Yeah. They were…" his nose scrunched up as if he had smelled on of Fred and George's stink bombs, "weird," he breathed with finality.
Ron shook his head and started pulling them forward again. "Well, thanks for that. Clear it right up, doesn't it?" He wanted to laugh but he was tired of these Winchesters already, even though it would be wicked to have Dean as a brother rather than any of his. He was the perfect blend of joking, like Fred or George, and bloody great like Charlie. Although Sam was a bit too much like Percy for his liking.
Neville tugged on Ron's arm and looked at him with the same just-seen-a-ghost-like-that-doesn't-happen-every-day face. "No, weird. Really odd. They were close and they talked about…uh…Sam's ass." Ron snorted. This was nothing new or interesting. He had heard his brothers swear loads and he did it sometimes, too. Neville really must have eaten something off for breakfast or maybe he got up on the wrong side of the bed or one of those sick plants attacked him – who knows? All Ron wanted to do was get to potions on time so he didn't have to endure Snape.
He shot a glare at Hermione, wanting to let her know that it was definitely in some way her fault that he was starting to act like her, because she was clearly more interested in gazing at walls with glassy eyes. Ron kept going, Harry and Hermione in toe, leaving Neville standing there, still dazed.
"I…I think, Dean kissed his neck or something." Neville murmured, as if someone was still there, listening to him.