And I breathe a huge sigh of relief! lol I'm sooo sorry it took me so long to get this out, but the 21 reviews really did help get my arse in gear! See they do work!
I promise it won't be as long next time! fingers crossed lol Let me know what you think.
Step ;)
Chapter 13
Ron sighed loudly as he looked up from the desk in front of him. He had been sat in the library for 9 minutes and already he was huffing and puffing as if he'd been waiting for Hermione for hours.
Hermione was between the bookshelves behind Ron and could hear his most unsubtle protests loud and clear. She didn't change what she was doing though; she wasn't leaving until she had found the information she was looking for.
After a couple more minutes of huffing and puffing Ron stood up and stormed around to Hermione. He glared at her as she glared at the text in front of her.
'Are you done yet?' Ron asked rudely.
'No I'm not, I would have come and found you if I had, like I said I would,' she replied calmly.
'But we've been here ages!'
His tone was uncannily like a five-year-old's and she rolled her eyes.
'Ron it's barely been ten minutes, go and sit down, I'll come over when I'm finished. Like I said I would!'
Ron sighed irritably for the eleventh time since he had entered the library.
'You know it was one of our rules to not spend excessive time in the library you know!'
'Yes, I know.'
Ron was slightly stumped by Hermione's lack of argument and her simple agreement.
'Well…the least you can do is stick by our rules!'
Hermione still refused to look at Ron and continued to read the heavy book she was looking through.
He looked at her profile and was slightly maddened by how much she was frustrating him. She wasn't getting angry with him or anything really. Ron knew his behaviour would have normally sparked some kind of reaction, but today she was being very calm. Too calm, like she was deliberately stopping herself getting angr-.
Ron's eyes widened in surprise. He looked around him trying to work out which part of the library he was in. He squinted at the dusty sign that was hanging at the end of the row of books but couldn't make out the scripted writing on the swinging wooden sign.
'Helpful!' he muttered to himself as he took a few steps towards it. Still he couldn't make out the writing so he cautiously took his wand out of his robes, watching for a lurking Madam Pince as he did so - wands weren't allowed in the library – and muttered 'Lumos'. He shone his wand light on the mysterious words above him.
'Legilimency?' he said louder than was necessary as he walked back to Hermione. He noticed she had gone the slightest shade of red in her cheeks. He studied her for a minute, and thought he saw her eyes flicker towards him instead of being intimately focused on the words in front of her.
'Hermione, its each other's feelings we can feel, we can't read each other's minds!' He said with a large smirk.
He soon stopped though, when Hermione slammed the book she was holding shut, only inches away from her nose, and banged it down on the shelf in front of her.
'Yes Ron!' she hissed with so much venom Ron wouldn't have been surprised if a serpent had possessed her. 'I am perfectly aware of our situation; I am trying to find away to stop it happening. The last thing I need is you knowing every little thing I feel!'
Ron frowned. 'Closing yourself off to me isn't going to help anything you know,' he said quietly.
A thought came to him, but he wasn't sure if he could pull it off.
'If you stopped talking to me again, or even if you stopped being your normal self around me, I'd be…well…'
He closed his eyes and concentrated on the way he felt when he'd missed Hermione over the past few weeks, when hostile was as good as it got between them. He felt sad, frustrated and the tiniest bit of jealousy when she was talking to Harry instead of talking to Harry and him.
'Ron wha-'
Hermione turned to look at Ron and he opened his eyes, still concentrating on what he'd felt.
Hermione's eyes glazed over slightly as she let herself feel Ron's emotions.
After a minute she broke the silence.
'I think you made your point,' she said quietly.
Ron took a deep breath and tried to wipe the feelings from his mind.
'Good,' he replied simply.
'I er…I missed you to.'
Ron looked at Hermione and saw another wave of red cover her cheeks and spread down her neck.
'I don't like it when we're not ourselves around each other. It's not…normal.'
'But Ron, nothing about this,' she moved her hand between the two of them, 'can be considered normal!'
'I know, I know. Look, find a way to block this feelings…connection…thing off between us if you want, just don't stop being the Hermione I love,' he'd come to the end of his breath and needed to pause to breath before he coughed, Hermione's eyes widened ever so slightly, he took a breath, 'to argue with!'
Hermione closed her eyes and a small smile crept on to her face.
'I won't.'
She turned back to the book she had slammed on the shelf and put it back in it's proper place between two huge leather bound books.
'Come on,' she said as she picked her bag off the floor, 'I think I've subjected you to far too long in the library. You'll start to feel ill soon!'
Ron laughed. 'Finally!'
He followed Hermione around the bookshelves and bent down to pick up his bag from under the table he had been sat at.
'Do you want to go to the Great Hall for dinner? I know we'll be early but we could do some homework or something.'
Hermione stopped dead in her tracks and her jaw dropped.
'I'm sorry, did you just say 'we could do some homework or something'?'
'Ha bloody ha! You know I did! As much as I don't like doing homework I do understand that I have to do it, as much as my Quidditch and chess playing part of my brain tries to deny that fact!'
Hermione started walking again and caught up with Ron.
'It also means I'll be first at the dinner table when food arrives!'
'Ah, now we have the real reason why you want to get there early!'
'Well it's Thursday! They do Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding on a Thursday. I get really annoyed if I miss it!'
'You know if you concentrated as much on your schoolwork as you did on Quidditch and your food you'd do a lot better!'
'I know!' Ron replied with a smile.
Hermione started giggling, but stopped when she whipped her head round to look behind them and stopped in her tracks once again.
'What is it?' Ron asked.
'I just thought I saw something…a shadow maybe.'
Ron stepped in front of Hermione and peered back into the shadow-filled corridor they had just walked through. The fact that it was quarter to five and the middle of winter meant the torches only did a little to help the student see their way through the darkened castle. He squinted but couldn't see anything.
'It's probably nothing,' Hermione said after a few seconds. 'Come on, you don't want to miss your favourite food!'
Ron turned and followed Hermione. They walked through the castle and arrived at the Great Hall. There were only five other people in there. Two at the Gryffindor table at the far end and three sat at the Ravenclaw table in the middle.
They sat down in their usual spot on the Gryffindor table and Hermione set about taking her books out of her bag. Ron was about to follow when a well-built boy who was roughly the same size Ron was when he was sat down, hurried up to him.
'Ron, can I have a quick word about Quidditch? If you're not busy of course!' Jimmy Peakes said in a rush once he had come to a hurried stop next to Ron.
'Yeah, why not? What do you want to talk about?'
'Well, would you mind just coming up to our end of the table, we've got something we'd like to show you, but we're disagreeing over the minor points. We were wondering if you'd tell us what you think.'
Ron sighed at the thought of having to get up but decided it would be wrong to demand the two of them bring their absolutely massive pile of books about Quidditch.
'Alright, but not too long okay, I have homework to start!'
Hermione looked up from her books and gave Ron a 'yeah right' look. He simply grinned at her in return.
Hermione watched as Ron walked, or stalked in a superior fashion over to Jimmy's place at the table. Hermione laughed as she watched them sit down and Jimmy start animatedly explaining whatever it was he wanted to talk to Ron about. She was brought from her observing from a voice next to her left ear.
'Thinks he's Merlin's gift doesn't he?'
The familiar drawl made Hermione snap her head round to look at Malfoy's grey eyes. He heavily sat down on the bench facing away from the table.
'What do you want Malfoy?' Hermione snarled.
'Nothing particular Granger, I just thought I'd spend the few minutes I have before dinner tormenting you. It seems like such a good idea, don't you think?'
'What a sad pathetic life you must lead if tormenting me is the only form of entertainment you have to fill your time Malfoy. Although I knew that anyway, you just confirmed it.'
Malfoy paled and his eyes narrowed as he surveyed Hermione.
'Pathetic? You'd know all about pathetic wouldn't you Granger, fawning over that pathetic excuse of a wizard when he doesn't even realise how much you like him. However stupid that in itself is!'
Hermione felt anger bubble inside her. She detested the way Malfoy spoke about Ron, like he was second rate. He was anything but second rate.
'Ron will always be better than you Malfoy, at everything!'
Malfoy threw his head back as he laughed out loud.
'Well you would say that, now that you have to spend every waking, and every other moment of the day with him, wouldn't you? I don't know who I feel more for, you having to witness his clumsy antics and half-arsed attempts at every spell and potion he does, or him for not being able to escape a Mudblood's presence!'
Hermione bit back her retort. He's not worth it Hermione, just ignore him. He's just sad and pathetic.
Hermione opened her books and tried to concentrate on the words in front of her, hoping Malfoy would become bored of her and leave.
Malfoy noticed the change in her and a smirk slid across his face. He swung his leg over the bench so he was now directly facing her, even thought she was staring resolutely at the book in front of her.
'I don't even know why you're going after Weasley, Granger. Even though the lot of them are scum they're still Pureblood. They'll never let you marry him, can't allow you to contaminate the bloodline now, can they? You can be the smartest witch in the world and it'll never impress them. It's not what's in here that counts,' he tapped the top of her head with his finger, 'its what runs through your veins that matters. You should have figured that out by now. Filthy little Mudblood.'
Hermione was trying her hardest not to cry. It was one of those things that she had thought about once and once only, the fact that if anything ever did happen between her and Ron, he and the whole of his family were Pureblood and she was Muggle born, would anyone care? The sensible part of her brain told her that the Weasley's didn't care about the so-called 'purity' of blood, but there was the part of her brain that had read far too many books that told the reader that purity of blood was paramount in maintaining wizarding and magical tradition.
Malfoy's words had hit a nerve, a painful one at that, and he knew he'd upset her. Her upset overwhelmed her and it was all she could do to control the sobs that she could feel building in her throat.
Malfoy had seen the tears that now glistened in her eyes and he smirked at his achievement.
'See Granger, you know I'm right. People like Potter can tell you as many times as he wants that bloodline doesn't count. But you know deep down that it does.'
He was about to carry on his little speech when a fist flew at him and punched him in the jaw, right before he was picked up off the bench and thrown on the floor.
Ron had felt Hermione's sudden change in mood and was alarmed when he felt so unbelievably hurt and upset, and realised that it was Hermione feeling that way. He had looked up from the drawings of Quidditch tactics Jimmy was showing him and spotted Malfoy's blond hair next to Hermione at the other end of the table. As another wave of hurt washed over him he stood up and sprinted down the side of the table, robes flying out from behind him, and stopped behind Hermione so he could hurt Malfoy. He hadn't meant to hit him quite that hard, but he hadn't counted on Malfoy's mouth being open and his jaw, therefore, being quite that vulnerable to damage. He had a suspicion he had just broken Malfoy's jaw. But he didn't care about that at the minute, he had other things to deal with.
'Hermione are you all right? Did he hurt you? What happened? How did he upset you?'
Hermione was in a slight state of shock. Her eyes flicked between Malfoy writhing on the floor in pain and Ron's concerned eyes.
'Hermione what happened. Tell me!'
'He er…he was saying…things. Oh Ron, you shouldn't have hit him, you'll get into serious trouble!'
'I don't care about that. I felt how he was making you feel. No one is allowed to make you feel like that Hermione! No one!'
Hermione whimpered as the tears finally fell from her eyes. Ron sat down where Malfoy had been and put his hand on Hermione's shoulder.
'What did he say to y- Aaahh!'
He slumped forward towards Hermione and his hand went to the bottom of his neck. Hermione looked at him in surprise and then saw Malfoy had hexed Ron from the floor, having recovered enough to find his wand and his vindictive streak.
Hermione fumbled for her wand but before she managed to find it in her robes, Professor McGonagal had entered the Great Hall after being found by one of the Ravenclaws – they thought they should tell someone about the 'fight' that had broken out in the Great Hall – and disarmed Malfoy.
'What on earth is going on here? A fine example our prefects are setting the rest of the school. The three of you follow me NOW!'
Malfoy instantly tried to seem more injured than he was. 'Malfoy stop performing, you have only been hit in the jaw, this does not stop you from walking to my office!'
Malfoy scowled as well as he could whilst his face was giving him so much pain. He rolled onto his front and stood up, gingerly feeling his jaw.
'Follow me!' McGonagal demanded.
She pointed towards the entrance to the hall and slowly Malfoy, Ron and Hermione stood and started walking to the Professor's office.
