There was one week left for Professor Slughorn's Christmas party, and shortly afterwards it would be the break of the Christmas holiday. Outside the castle there was snow where you looked and walked, and inside the castle there was anxiety and whispered conversation during class and loud and lively conversations in the rest of the time.
This festive mood had its interruptions with the news of attacks by Voldemort supporters, at that moment the nervousness and fear took predominance in people, Neville Longbottom's grandmother was the victim of a recent attack, but without getting hurt, however from this fact, she decided to move in with the other relatives, Algie and Enid Longbottom. Hannah Abbott's family had been attacked and had some relatives injured, and the same year Ron, Ravenclaw's father Stephen Cornfoot had been killed by a Death Eaters attack.
The person who was particularly affected by the news, if he did not leave school to be with his family, walked around the castle in a nervous or somber way. and it was nervous and dark that Ron was waiting for Professor McGonagall's announcement about the beginning of the activities of the wizard chess club.
"Ron, you need to eat anything or dinner will be over and you'll be hungry," Harry said, concerned about the different colors his friend's face was presenting.
"I'll get something later in the kitchen, I'm enjoying eating there once in a while," Ron said softly.
"Well, you already have a member who is me, it will not be so bad," said Harry reassuringly.
"What if no one wants to come in?"
"That's unlikely, and yet it will be better if a lot of people want to come in soon, look at the work I've had with the Quidditch tryouts and what I'm getting to get a girl to go to Slughorn's Christmas party. it will not be cool if I pick a girl and end up at the party like me and Parvati in the fourth year.
"It's really a very difficult job," Ron said, rolling his eyes.
"Well, maybe if you talked better with Hermione and Ginny to join the club?" said Harry cautiously.
"No, it's better not, I do not want to disrupt the studies or dating of anyone, or worse receive their pity," Ron said seriously.
"You can talk to other people, I think Neville or Luna would like to participate, or maybe those two Slytherins, Greengrass and Davis.
"I never imagined that one day you would make the suggestion of inviting a Slytherin to do anything and I would not find it absurd," Ron said.
"The selector hat spoke of the union of the houses, did not it? and I've been watching them after that day of your work in muggle studies, and they do not show up very often at the main hall table but they seem to be nice to people who talk to them, they did not treat me the way I'm used to being a Slytherin", said Harry
"Hum, you mean your problem in getting a pair is because you're now watching Slytherin girls," Ron said, laughing now.
"Keep your mouth shut, it's nothing like that," said Harry ashamed.
"What's all this about?" Said a voice next to them.
At that moment, Hermione sat down next to Harry with a tired-looking face, Ron was quiet and it was up to Harry to have some conversation between them.
"No big deal, just Ron amusing me with my problems to find a pair," Harry said.
"And what's your problem? Just do not pick a girl like Vane", said Hermione.
"The trouble is, most of the girls are looking like Vane to me".
"Well, if you had told me I would go with you, not with the idiot Cormac McLaggen."
This made Ron lift his head from the plate and pay attention.
"And why did you want to go with him in the first place?" Harry asked
"The other options have declined," the girl replied calmly.
"You could have asked for the ...(Harry stopped in the middle of the sentence, he watched Hermione's gaze and smile and saw that she wanted him to ask for Ron to bring that up, while Ron's killer look said "Say no more, otherwise I'll make Voldemort's job easier and kill you)... Neville, for example", Harry wiped the sweat from his face at that moment of tension.
Hermione, even a little disappointed at Harry's change in the question, seemed like she wanted to understand more of why she was refused by Ron, replied:
"Neville's going to be with his grandmother earlier, and he's worried someone might do something to his parents."
At that moment, Professor McGonagall stood up from the teachers' table and announced.
"Students, I'd like to give you a message, I'm very pleased to say that the wizard chess club at our school is being reopened, with the direction of Captain Ronald Weasley who has an interest, you should look for him or me, good night.
After the announcement, there was some laughter from the Slytherins, some comments from some colleagues, but no extreme reaction, taking the deep look that Ginny gave toward him and the incredulous and then irritated Hermione.
"So this is Weasley, are you no longer a prefect and the Gryffindor keeper to play chess?" With those Slytherin girls? I do not know why I charmed McLaggen so you could be the keeper of the Gryffindor "Turning to Harry, she continued." "That's another reason, Harry, for me to invite McLaggen."
Hermione stormed out of the table toward the bedrooms. As Ron grew extremely red with anger and turned his face to Harry and asked,
"Did you know?"
"Only after the test," Harry said quickly.
"And you did not tell me why?" said Ron, holding his anger.
"Because it was only going to hurt you and her, as it is happening right now, when I asked her why she did it, she said that she wanted to help you, and that McLaggen spoke very badly of you and Ginny during the tests.
"All right, let me calm down a bit, then I'll talk to you," Ron said, putting both hands on the table, rising and leaving the main hall.
Ron spent a few hours in the kitchen after what had happened over dinner, only went to the dormitory when the hallways were empty, he was a little annoyed with Harry, but decidedly furious with Hermione.
He always knew he had anxiety problems with Quidditch, but he never managed to control it, the big reason for Ron's bad feeling was the way Hermione said it was in a way that showed how the girl wanted to hurt him.
No longer Quidditch matter to him anymore, today he did not see why the girl said it to him. He had been far away, had not argued much, and then discovered that she sabotaged the Quidditch tests so he would get the position and made a point of telling him that to make him feel bad, that was too much.
As for Harry, Ron understood that he knew later, and unlike the girl, he did not say anything to not sadden him
"Enough of that!" He said to no one in particular.
Nothing good would happen if he continued with those thoughts, what he needed was to move on, Hermione being hurt with him was not a novelty, and he knowing that he had no talent for Quidditch was no longer new, he did not have because he was feel so bad about what happened. He needed to start his life better than that.
After arriving in the dormitory with a disillusionment spell in the middle of the night, he found his roommates still awake, but dismissed the questioning looks saying that he was in the hospital wing and went to sleep.
The next day it got very cold for Ron, at the table of thr great hall, Harry and Ron were talking to the Muffliato Charm spell so they would not have this conversation heard.
"See Ron, I was coordinating the Quidditch tests and I did not see her doing this with McLaggen, only then did she admit to having bewitched the guy, and then if I came out and told everyone what happened, it was only going to be bad for both of you,
"But if you ... tried to ask Ron, but Harry did not stop talking.
"And if I wanted you on the team that way, I would not have done the tests, I could have made you a Goalkeeper from the beginning, since I played last year, remember what Katie Bell said.
"Right, right, right, you convinced me," Ron said with a closed face.
"What about Hermione?" Are you going to talk to her?
"Not now, all this confusion has happened because I've always been a person who quarrels with her for any reason, I think it's best that she and I should not be any closer," the boy said sadly.
Muggle study class was the last of Thursday, before the holiday break, with Professor Slughorn's party going on tomorrow night after school at eight o'clock.
And Ron for the first time ever since joining the gang wished from the bottom of his heart not to be present.
The content of the class was about theater and related subjects, costumes, makeup, lighting, sound, etc. Each of the groups should do a research on the topics and make practical demonstrations at the end of March and the groups would have until the end of January to decide the theme, in that time they should answer questionnaires on all the subjects and know better the options that they had.
The problem was that her two classmates were not giving a damn about today's class since the beginning of the activity, they were whispering about a seemingly very important subject,
As Tracey desperately tried to talk to Daphne, the other girl had a murderous expression on her face and held her wand tightly even though she was not needed for class and kept repeating:
"I'm going to kill them, I'm going to kill them."
"Stop it, Daphne. put aside your wand. We're in the middle of class. I know what happened was awful, but if you do not want to help Weasley right now, tell the teacher you're not feeling well and ask to go to the hospital by headache or anything.
"Okay," said another girl.
"And do not do anything stupid ..."
With a nod, the other girl left them to talk to the Professor.
Tracey Davis turned to him and said,
"Sorry about that, she had some pretty bad news right now at lunch and that's the way you saw it.
Even not wanting to say those words, since her diagolo skills with girls were zero, Ron said,
"Is it serious?" Can I help with anything?
After studying Ron's face for a few moments the girl replied,
"For some people it is very serious, but I think it is not life and death as it may have seemed to you, in short, she had been dating Zabini since the beginning of September, but the guy was not faithful and dropped her for another girl from our house".
"It must be a bad thing to feel, I am not an authority on the subject since I never had a girlfriend, but her reaction seemed very strong, had she liked him in a long time? I mean before the dating?" said Ron
"I think she might start to like him a lot, little by little, but the biggest problem is that she was traded for Queenie Runcorn, a person she hates, and there is the issue of dress," Tracey replied.
"Dress?" Said the boy with a confused expression.
"Yes, yes," continued the girl, running her index finger through the muggle book summary, searching the subjects of the class questions, "I'm going to have to make a bigger explanation for you, Weasley, you promise not to spread this conversation from now on"?
"Of course," Ron replied almost indignantly.
"Okay, both me and Greengrass, we are not the most popular people in Slytherin, although the two of us in terms of beauty are above average, right?"
"Right ..." Ron replied with a red face.
"Good thing you realize that," said the girl, winking at him. But our families, even old ones, are not rich. And as both Daphne and I are declining arranged marriage proposals for some time and this ended up us joining in a way, but it made our house not see us very well, since some suitors are from there and that our parents stopped us give money as often as it would if we were obedient daughters. So we have to deal with lying comments and rumors about us.
"But, exactly, how does it get to the dress?"
"Well, Daphne had little money for a new dress, but her fourth-year-old could not fit, so she bought a new one, even with little money from her, and now she's wasted that money and not even going to the party. So the only way for you to help out a little bit would be to meet someone invited to Slughorn's party and have no one to take in twenty-four hours yet.
"I know of someone.
"Seriously," the girl said, her eyes glinting at Ron. Who? He's cool?
"Usually you Slytherins hate him, but I'm talking about Harry Potter."