Confrontation
Here is chapter 2!
"So sweetheart, how was your first day at school?"
"Oh it was good,"
"Were people nice? I know how nervous you were about starting a new school so far into the year."
"Yes I was, but as a matter of fact the students are all very welcoming, they really seem to have given up their time to make me feel comfortable," Seamus' face suddenly sprang to mind, and I smiled to myself; although Jane, currently on the other end of the phone line, was oblivious.
"So does it look like I can persuade you to move back home?" she asked hopefully.
I laughed.
"Mum, stop throwing me in the way of temptation, I'm doing fine here."
Luckily I was a pretty convincing liar, so Jane just sighed and proceeded to ask me what I was up to.
"I have homework that's in need of being done," I reminded her curtly, she knew how stressed I got if I was not up to date with my work.
"Oh ok then," she said promptly, "I'll ring you tomorrow sweet, and try not to tear your hair out about bloody homework," she laughed, "it's not worth the amount of stress you have over it. Hey, did you know that stress can reduce your life for up to twenty years!"
Knowing full well she was exaggerating in an attempt to sound shockingly dramatic, I merely nodded and said my farewells.
"Later hun! Love you lots," Jane replied in her consistent chirpy voice.
"Love you too mum."
Later that night I found myself tossing and turning in bed, unable to settle down. But my mind was at work; I was constructing exactly what I was going to say when I confronted Ron Weasley about his behaviour in Biology tommorow. And boy was I having fun doing it!
Rain spattered around us as we stood in the parking lot waiting for the bell to go. I was leaning against my truck, completely absorbed in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, whilst at the same time keeping an eye out for the arrival of the Weasley family.
I had no idea what sort of car they drove to school in, so it didn't overly suprise me when I happened to glance up and see them walking towards the school building: The elder one, the two twins and the girl; hang on a minute, that's all there was; where was he?
Seeing me staring at them, the current four all turned their heads towards me with rather knowing expressions on their faces. I looked away just as the bell went, and began making my way to my first lesson, trying to calm the worry that had started to bubble in my stomach: was I the reason that he was not here?
The day dragged on in a similar pattern as to the one before; I had a feeling school was going to become quite a repetetive process, but that didn't bother me too much. What annoyingly bothered me, as I walked nervously into Biology, was the instinctive certainty that I was the reason for Ron Weasley's abscene in school today.
And for the remainder of the week. Everytime his family saw me they continued to look at me with the same knowing gaze that patronised me to the very core. Do they think I deliberately drove their brother out of school for the last week?! I'm guessing that they aren't aware of how foul and horrible he is to those around him!
It is a well known fact that wet slippery surfaces do absolutely nothing to aid one's coordination when trying to walk upon them. This was confirmed for me when I went flying down the porch steps as I was heading towards my truck.
"Whoa Hermione!" said Sirius, who came sliding over to catch me; unfortunately, he wasn't very quick off the mark, as I was already lying flat on my backside.
"It's alright dad," I said as he helped to pull me up, "Wet surfaces don't do much when it comes to helping my balance."
"Y'alright kiddo?"
"Yes I'm fine," I assured him. I brushed my damp jeans in an attempt to rid some of the mud off them, and began loading my school bag into my truck.
"Oh Hermione," Sirius turned back to me as he opened the door to his police car.
"Yes dad."
"Don't go hanging round near the woods for the time being; there's been some rather serious accidents going on around there,"
"Ok, no problem. How serious were the accidents?"
"Well, everybody who was involved in them died," said Sirius bluntly; he looked at me very sternly.
"I won't go anywhere near the woods dad, I promise," I said reassuringly.
He nodded, "Okey dokey then, I'd best be heading off. Have a good day Hermione, drive safely."
"Bye dad," I waved him off, and then began to make my own steady journey to school, where the rain was still coming down in bullets, and continued to do so for the rest of the morning.
As I walked with Pavarti and Padma into the canteen, my eyes immediately registered the presence of five red headed people at the table where the Weasley's were sitting. My heart leapt into my throat, and I hurried towards my friends' table without even glancing to see if he was throwing death looks at me.
All through the remainder of lunch there was an internal battle happening within me: A suprisingly huge part of me was restraining the urge to storm over to his table and demand to know why he was so mean to me last week, while the other part was panicking and trying to work up ways I could skive off Biology. In the end, the more dominant part-the part that had waited all week to confront him- made my final decision, and I headed over to Biology.
I payed as little attention as I could towards him as I sat down and began sorting the necessary books into a neat pile. But my random moment of OCD was interuppted when a I heard a gruff voice acknowledge me.
"Hello, My name's Ron Weasley, don't think I had a chance to introduce myself last week, you're Hermione Granger?"
I simply nodded. I was scorned by the way he made it sound like any actions on his part hadn't prevented him from attempting to introduce himself last week.
"Onion root!" shouted Mr Snape once the rest of the class had quietened down, "today, we will be analysing and defining the properties of this fascinating herb! I want you all to work in pairs, and the first pair to complete the task will be presented with a big bar of Cadbury's Milk chocolate!" he looked pointedly in mine and Ron Weasley's direction, me having established myself as the new brains of the class, I couldn't help but assume he'd bought the chocolate with me in mind, as it happened to be my very favourite.
Once Mr Snape had set the class off with the task in hand, Ron pushed the microsope we would be using towards me.
"Ladies first," he said sarcastically.
"Just because I'm a girl, don't assume that I'm going to be the only one doing this experiment!" I retorted, "this is supposed to be a team effort, so you are going to help!"
Ron laughed, and just looked at me with an I'd-like-to-see-you-try expression written across his face.
I couldn't describle the anger that seethed within me as I looked at his arrogant and irritatingly good looking features, which somehow still seemed to hold my attention in a way nothing else had ever done before.
"You will help!" I told him severely, and I began to insert the first plate of onion root into onto the magnifying glass.
"Excuse me, what makes you think I'm going to?" replied Ron mockingly, " sounds like you've got enough brains to fill this entire room, surely you don't need my highly adapted one too?"
"Your brain would only be useful if I ever wanted to measure the size of your abnormally big ego," I replied without looking up.
"Ouch," said Ron; he pulled the piece of paper on which we were to write our results towards him, "want me to write?"
"Only if you think you can handle it," I said sarcastically.
"Take that as a yes then," he began to doodle absent mindly on the corners of the page, waiting expectantly for me to present him with the first answer.
I looked up cheerfully when I had it figured out.
"Anaphase," I said.
Before writing it down, Ron asked: "Mind if I check?"
"Thought you didn't want to help," I stated simply, but I didn't prevent him from looking for himself; I knew he was hoping that I would be wrong, and I felt a sense of smugness when he removed his eye from the microscope and wrote down the word "Anaphase" whilst muttering it under his breath.
"Like I said," I answered in response to his mumbling.
"I'm doing the next one," he said grumpily.
After a few minutes of checking the next slide he looked back up and informed me it was "Prophase".
"Mind if I check?" I asked, repeating his question.
He shrugged and I glanced into the microscope, and saw what definetley confirmed as "Prophase".
He was looking at me expectantly again when I glanced back up.
"It's prophase," I confirmed.
"Like I said," he smiled and jotted it down while I arranged the next slide. We continued like this for the remainder of the lesson; Ron actually appeared to be rather intelligent, so we worked well as a team, although it was something neither of us could admit to.
We were finished before everyone else in the class, so that meant there was nothing much we could do but try not to make sarcastic comments to each other; and also, in my case, attempt to keep my attention focused away from his beautiful face. Ugh! Can't even believe I'm describing him in that way! But his personality certainly doesn't exist in the same league as his looks, I thought to myself. However,I was suddenly dragged out of my reverie by Ron's decidedly irritating voice.
"Why'd you move here?"
"Sorry?" I said, suprised.
"Why. Did. You. Move. Here?" he asked dumbly.
"Shut up! I understood exactly what you said. I moved here so I could spend some time with my father."
"Ahh Sirius Granger, I quite like him."
"Well that's nice to know." I muttered, suprised that he actually appeared to like somebody.
"But you don't seem to be very happy here," Ron commented, "Do you not like it?"
"I've only been here just over a week! So I'm still getting used to being away from home and my mother," I could not believe I had just said that to him.
"Oh," he replied. I waited for the spiteful remark to come. But it didn't. Instead, Ron just looked at me with a rather curious expression on his face; there was no way I could look away now. For a few seconds, we were completley absorbed in each other's eyes...
But it was only a few very short seconds.; we quickly averted our eyes away from each other, both of us muttering under our breath.
After being told what we had both already figured, Mr Snape presented us with the award winning chocolate. Ron just looked at it sourly and thrust the the entire bar towards me.
"You don't want any?" I said, suprised.
"Nah, you have it," he said dismissively.
"Now that's a suprise," I mumbled, shoving the bar in my bag.
Ron shot me a dirty look which I returned, just as the bell went; and just like last week, he was first out of the room like a gust of wind.
I took my time about heading outside. Rain was still plummeting down hard, and I stupidly hadn't thought to bring my anorak. So, by the time I did eventually make it to my truck, my hair and clothes were a sopping mess; I fumbled for my key and jumped quickly as I could into the cab. It was lovely and warm in there, so I turned the heater on and let my hair fan out; it would go all frizzy now.
I was completley unaware of the people heading for their cars around me; it had been a stressful and frustrating day and I was eager to get back to Sirius'. As I pressed down on the accelarator and began to manouvere my way out of the busy parking lot, I noticed somebody watching me. That somebody wasn't too hard to make out: he had bright red hair which was plastered on top of his head as he stood by his car, and continued to watch me struggle my way out of the lot. As I carried on doing so, I caught sight of him laughing at my pitiful attempts to reverse out ofmy space. I revved my engine and my hand edged towards pulling the clutch into reverse; the temptation to squash both him and his silly little Ford Anglia was almost too apealling. But instead, I pushed forward on the accelarator, and departed the parking lot.