AN: Here it is! Chapter 2, which is, of course, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets--where we meet Ginny Weasley for the first time and Tom Riddle and the basilik. And Ron and Hermione continue to totally and completely misunderstand the other so utterly that it's a miracle they ever see eye to eye at all. Really, these two are such a perfect example of both speaking the same language and not getting a thing the other is saying. But really, that's what makes them all the more adorable, right?

As some of you might have noticed, pretty much all the dialogue comes directly from the text. We're just seeing the scenes from a different POV--either Ron or Hermione's--with their thoughts instead of Harry's. Because really, Harry is just not very observant at this point. There are some scenes that I stretched a bit, but I'm trying not to directly contradict anything that JKR wrote. For example, she never tells us exactly why Ron and Hermione are together at Harry's first Quidditch practice, but they are clearly there together.

Thanks to Jamie and Andrew and Rach. I would give SNs. . .but well, I'm trying to keep the "real me" under wraps here :)


"A loud bang echoed around the stadium and a jet of green light shot out of the wrong end of Ron's wand, hitting him in the stomach and sending him reeling backward onto the grass. 'Ron! Ron! Are you all right?' squealed Hermione. Ron opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Instead he gave an almighty belch and several slugs dribbled out of his mouth onto his lap." (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, pg 112-133).

Ron spent a lot of time that summer in his bright orange room at the top of the Burrow, just lying in bed and thinking. It might be a running joke that the second youngest Weasley didn't do much of that, but Ron did think—despite the growing evidence to the contrary. And that summer, he did a lot of thinking about Hermione Granger. He thought about Harry too, of course, because Harry was the best friend that a bloke could have, but deep down, it just wasn't the same. They weren't the same.

It wasn't that Hermione wasn't a good friend too--she was. It wasn't that she was less loyal than Harry or even less fun to hang around—though he would have rather faced the Cruciatus curse than ever admit because it was a commonly-held belief that Hermione Granger was a rule-adhering, mischief-ruining wet blanket. Whenever Seamus or Dean made that claim, Ron would change the subject because they were wrong, so wrong, but he liked that he and Harry were the only blokes who were privy to Hermione's occasional jaunts into troublemaking.

All that aside, Ron was acutely aware that there was something vast that separated his friendship with Harry from his friendship with Hermione. It all came down to how much he was truly willing to share. Under pain of death, Ron could possibly admit to Harry something about his feelings for a certain clever witch. Even under pain of death, possibly even with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named staring him down, Ron knew he could never breathe a word of it to Hermione. Not ever.

The first letter he'd gotten from her over the summer drove the point home. He'd been so downright bloody thrilled to see that familiar neat, ever-so-precise handwriting on the envelope that he'd nearly flung himself over four Weasleys to get to it. He told himself he was only trying to reach it before Fred or George got their hands on it and crowed for the next three months that Ron was getting letters from a girl, but he knew he was lying to himself. He'd raced up the stairs, all the way to the top floor of the Burrow, and by the time he'd reached the top, his heart was pounding in his chest. From the stairs, of course.

Not from the letter crumpled in his hand. He'd smoothed it out carefully before opening it, eagerly scanning the contents. It had been a perfectly nice, friendly, albeit typical Hermione letter. Not that he knew necessarily what a typical Hermione letter entailed since this was his very first, but this one pretty much screamed Hermione. It was almost all about books and Hogwarts and all the sorts of proper Muggle things she'd been doing during the summer. Ron wondered if Harry had gotten a similar letter, but then reminded himself that of course he had. The three of them were friends. Why on earth would Hermione send him a different kind of letter than she'd send to Harry?

Ron did like her as a friend; he also liked her as more than a friend—and the two were horribly twisted up together into this big mess of self-doubt and fear and joy inside him. In any case, there wasn't anything to be really done about the more-than-friendly part of liking Hermione. She would just laugh at him. Unfortunately there was just enough hope in Ron that he couldn't give up completely on the possibility that at some point, in the distant and murky future, she might return his feelings. But for that to happen, he had to convince her that he wasn't a complete git.

So he spent the summer thinking of ways to impress her, but by the time he and Ron and Fred rescued Harry from the awful Muggles at the end of the summer, the list of possibilities was still alarmingly short. He wasn't incredibly clever, or particularly funny or even very athletic. And, he thought ruefully, horrible, ruddy ginger hair wasn't exactly at the top of every witch's wish list.

But the car, the car, was bloody brilliant. Sure, Harry arrived at Hogwarts the same way, but Ron was the one driving the car. In his mind, they would land perfectly, right in front of the entrance, and Hermione would rush out the front gate, cheeks flushed, hair flying, her expression full of admiration and a just a tinge of worry.

That lovely fantasy was instead totally destroyed by the bloody Whomping Willow. And Snape, who spent most of first year looking for a way to expel both of them, and nearly got one, this first night of their second year.

Somehow, despite the whole debacle, they managed to avoid Snape's trap. By the time they made it to the Fat Lady and her entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room, Harry was silent and Ron was mourning the car and the way it could have impressed Hermione. Then, he heard her voice, and he turned to see her rushing towards them and that's when Ron realized that she knew and well, she didn't exactly look what he would call impressed. In fact, she looked rather the opposite. Whoops. He doesn't think he'd ever be grateful for the Whomping Willow, but he'd rather take that particular arrival than Hermione trying to hex his balls off for being a showy arse.

Hermione's face was flushed a bright red and her eyes flashed in annoyance. Ron, even though he had a feeling he was closer to losing his life now than he'd been earlier with Snape, couldn't help but feel a wave of exhilaration rush through him at seeing her again. Mental tendencies and all, he'd bloody missed her.

"There you are! Where have you been? The most ridiculous rumors—someone said you'd been expelled for crashing a flying car."

Ron held his breath, thinking that she sounded bloody well furious. Almost as furious as McGonagall had. Maybe even as bad as Snape.

Or maybe that was just his own head, berating himself for again doing something that was originally intended to impress her that only ended up backfiring again.

"Well, we haven't been expelled," Harry assured Hermione.

"Skip the lecture," Ron told her with an impatient voice, almost unable to bear hearing more from her about his own shortcomings. After all, not everyone could be the brightest witch in the class. And him? He was just Ron Weasley. Just another Weasley. He couldn't bear to see that truth in her own eyes, so he turned away as soon as they got into the Gryffindor Common Room, saying something about how he was tired and wanted to go to bed.

If things had gone differently, he would have liked nothing better than to sit with her and talk after a whole summer apart with only a few stiff letters to break the monotony, but with the disappointment bitter on his tongue, Ron instead listened to Percy and climbed the stairs to the dormitory, totally ignoring the hurt look in Hermione's eyes.

After the flying car debacle, Ron told himself that he was going to be choosier about the moments to impress Hermione.

In the end, there was no choice, really. There was no time to prepare, no time to think hard on something that might demonstrate to her that he was more deserving than Harry Potter—even though a million years probably wouldn't be enough for that.

No, in the end it came down to Draco Malfoy and his big sodding mouth.

He and Hermione had gone to watch the Gryffindor Quidditch practice. He'd been thrilled when she'd agreed to come along, and even more thrilled, and maybe even a little nauseous, when he saw she hadn't lugging along half the library with her. That meant, he quavered a little, they'd be talking. Talking without Harry. Even though he liked to think that he and Hermione were friends just on their own without Harry, it was so rarely just the two of them.

It was in moments like these Ron became excruciatingly aware of her nearness as they sat on the empty stands, her leg brushing his as they watched the Gryffindors take the pitch. It was in moments like these, Ron thought to himself darkly, that the whole other side of his friendliness with Hermione came to the forefront.

His palms had been sweating before they'd even sat down. He'd initially wanted to come to the Gryffindor practice so he could observe and learn and then hopefully make the team next year. Even though Hermione seemed rather unimpressed by Quidditch, he thought maybe she'd come around in time. But with Hermione sitting next to him, even in total innocence, Ron knew that he would have very little hope in absorbing any of the new Gryffindor plays. If anyone had told him a year ago that a girl existed who could make him forget about Quidditch, Ron would have told them they were lying prats. But it appeared he would have been quite wrong.

Then Malfoy had shown up with the Slytherin team, all carrying Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones, and Hermione had jerked on his jumper, urging him to come with her to see what the fuss was about. He didn't even hesitate. He got up and followed her because as a bloke with a stupid, ridiculous crush, he pretty much had no choice. He went if she asked, end of story. He just hoped that with the distraction of the Slytherin arrival nobody had noticed him following her around like a bloody dog.

Malfoy proceeded to amuse the Slytherins by insulting Gryffindor—which was pretty much like a House pastime for them—and he couldn't believe Hermione's reaction. Or really, his own.

"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," she said with a sharp tone. "They got in on pure talent."

He had to give Hermione credit for that dig. It was sharp, her timing was flawless, and it was undeniably, utterly true. He'd seen Malfoy on a broom once or twice, and the bloke had nothing on Harry. Nothing on any of the other Seekers he'd ever seen, actually. Of course, his lack of overall skill might be possibly because he was currently wearing those nasty green and silver Slytherin robes.

Ron tried picturing Malfoy in Chudley Cannon orange, and almost shuddered at the thought. Nope, he decided, Malfoy would still be trash. Even if the Cannons ever let him on their squad, which they wouldn't. They were bad, but not Malfoy bad.

"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood," Draco hissed at Hermione and Ron's whole world went red, adrenaline mixing with magic and sizzling through his veins. It was bad enough when Malfoy insulted him or Harry, but it was an entirely different kettle of fish when he turned on Hermione.

Ron knew he had a horrible temper. The Weasley temper it was called and it was often spoken of in hushed, reverent, almost fearful tones in the Wizarding world. He thought he'd experienced the worst it could be before this. He'd definitely been furious before—with his brothers, with his mum sometimes, and definitely with Snape and Malfoy and all the Slytherins last year. But he'd never experienced such pure, unadulterated rage.

It swept through him, leaving his heart racing and his mind a total blank. He acted without a single thought in his head. He felt his hand reaching into his robes for his wand and he heard himself bellow in a voice he almost didn't recognize as his own, "You'll pay for that one, Malfoy."

He cast a spell, though which one it was, he couldn't even say. He'd done it all on sheer instinct and with the nerve and power that the anger rushing through him had wrought. It wasn't until he felt the explosion out of his wand knock him back hard on the ground that he realized what he'd done—and what his wand had done instead. He felt horribly sick, so sick that he couldn't even drag himself up. He could hear Hermione's voice, very far away, as the worst nausea he'd ever experienced punched him hard in the gut.

Unfortunately, he realized what was happening about a second before it actually did. He gave a great belch, and two slugs came up, one after another. They tasted rotten and felt even worse, and if he wasn't already being sick all over the ground, he would have puked again.

He was only vaguely aware of the Slytherins' reaction to his predicament, and for that he was grateful. It was bad enough that he was currently puking slugs in front of Hermione.

Hermione and Harry each grabbed one of his arms and they dragged him to Hagrid's hut, who cheerily set a copper basin front of him and advised him that the slugs were, "Better out than in." Ron would have made a face at this, but he was too busy bending over the bucket, being miserably and utterly sick.

And then, just when he thought that it was impossible for the whole situation to get any bloody worse, Hagrid asked Harry what happened. Ron was only half-listening because well, he was kind of occupied at the moment and also, he'd been in the middle of the whole bloody mess--he didn't need to hear about it again.

But of course, whenever Hermione spoke, he listened, because he couldn't even help himself. He was that much of a bloody miserable sod. "He did," she said, assuring Hagrid that Malfoy had indeed done what Harry said. "But I don't know what it means. I could tell it was really rude, of course."

The world stopped. Another slug forced itself wretchedly out of his mouth and Ron contemplated never ever facing Hermione again. She didn't even know why he'd defended her. Of course, he reminded himself in a fit of loathing anger, she wouldn't know what Mudblood meant. She couldn't possibly know because she had Muggle parents. She didn't realize that calling someone that in most Wizarding families meant an instant mouthful of soap.

Or in Ron's case, a stomachful of slugs.

He was the only one in the room who had really grown up in the Wizarding world. He was the only one in the room who could try to tell Hermione what Malfoy had really said to her. Maybe, if she understood, she could see that he couldn't just stand by and let Malfoy insult her that way. Maybe, if he explained, she could really see him.

So gingerly he raised his head, fighting the inevitable pull of the nausea, wiped the cold sweat off his brow, and faced the girl who had no idea what she meant to him. The slugs were bad, yeah, but he would go through worse if Malfoy ever dared to insult her again.

"It's about the most insulting thing he could think of," he said, trying to meet her eyes and failing. "Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who is Muggle-born--you know, non-magic parents. There are some wizards--like Malfoy's family--who think they're better than everyone else because they're what people call pure-blood."

And, Ron silently added as he dived for the bucket yet again, they're wrong, because there's nobody, nobody, who's better than you.


Hermione Jean was used to being alone. She'd spent already two summers alone, while her parents worked at their office. She'd been the only girl in her old Muggle school who was allowed to stay at home alone. This normally would have been considered "cool," but in Hermione's case, it only emphasized her boorishness and responsibility, and as a result, she'd been isolated for it instead. She actually hadn't had very many friends in the Muggle school, so when Harry and Ron had become her friends, she'd been thrilled.

And most of that thrill, she told herself firmly, had to do with the fact that she had two amazing friends--not that one of them happened to be Ron Weasley.

While she knew she was in a much better situation in the summer than Harry, Hermione still missed Hogwarts. She was used to being alone, but the last year had had such an impact on her that she no longer enjoyed it the same way she'd used to. She missed busy routine of Hogwarts: the classes and the professors and the fascination that the library held. And she missed Ron. Harry, too, of course.

By the third week, she'd already re-read Hogwarts: A History twice. After that, she spent a week debating whether she should write to Harry and Ron. After vacillating more than she was definitely comfortable with, Hermione finally decided in the affirmative.

Harry's letter was easy. She dashed off a few sentences, not even bothering with proofreading or drafts, and addressed it. The whole process took less than fifteen minutes. Of course, if she had only had Harry to write to, she wouldn't have taken a week to decide on writing in the first place.

Ron's letter, on the other hand, was anything but easy. They should have been the same, Hermione told herself over and over as she stared at the blank piece of parchment in front of her--there should have been no difference between the letter she wrote to Harry and the letter she wrote to Ron. In fact, she almost ripped open Harry's already-sealed letter and copied it word for word, but at the last second, she set it back down on the desk.

It was time, she realized, for her to come to terms with the fact that while everyone else might see her friendship with Ron as identical to the one she had with Harry, deep down, she knew they were different. Harry was like her brother. Ron was. . .not.

So it made sense, Hermione thought, as she took a deep breath and returned to her blank parchment, that their letters would be different. It was logical. Except that Hermione knew her feelings for Ron were the opposite of logical. If she was indeed being logical, she'd have a crush on Harry instead. While he was rather bull-headed and enjoyed leaping before he looked, Harry was smart, had the makings of a very strong wizard, and was rather good-looking, even for a scrawny boy of twelve.

Conversely, Ron was rude, mean, lazy, hated doing his homework, and seemed to think not knowing anything was a state greatly to be desired. He had good points too, Hermione insisted to herself. Despite all his shortcomings, he was also brave, unfailingly loyal, and had a wicked sense of humor--though he often used it at inopportune moments. Plus, she seemed to have become rather partial to ginger hair. Objectively , she shouldn't like Ron. There was nothing about him, taken individually, that should make him so blasted fascinating--but it was undeniable that to her, he just was.

Staring at the parchment for the next hour, Hermione decided that day that she was through fighting it. So she liked him. So what? It wasn't as if anything would ever come of it because it was hopeless that he would ever notice she was a girl, but that corner of her heart that liked him argued that she was wrong. Not only was she wrong, it added, but she couldn't give up before she even tried.

So she squared her shoulders, and decided that though he would likely have no idea she was doing It, she, Hermione Jean Granger, was going to fight for the attention of Ronald Bilius Weasley. She'd not really made much effort last year. Half the time, she'd been actively trying to discourage herself from liking him, but no more. If she liked him, which she clearly did, she wasn't going to go down without a good fight.

She spent the next hour attempting to draft a suitable letter to Ron that would somehow communicate, subtly, that she was a girl and that she was worth seeing as such. There had to be some sort of magical words she could use that only he would understand, but as the first hour changed into the next and the pile of crumpled parchment beside her desk grew, Hermione wondered if it was useless. Unless she made up the whole dratted thing, there wasn't anything she could say that was really new. She'd read last year's school books. Twice. She'd gone to the park. She'd had a haircut. Mainly, she'd stayed at home and done what Hermione had always done. And clearly, from what Ron had spent the last year saying, anything that Hermione had always done was of little to no interest.

Hermione decided it was time to try another tactic. Maybe there was something in her rather boring Muggle life that she could describe that he would find interesting. Except that the only two things that Ron appeared to have any interest in were Quidditch and candy.

Hermione didn't play Quidditch. In fact, she couldn't even figure out Quidditch. Of course, she knew the rules and the theory, but she didn't understand Ron and Harry's singular fascination with it. She decided that once she got back to school, she'd re-devote herself to understanding the game. Maybe she'd even check out Quidditch Through the Ages again from the library. It had been an interesting book, despite that it had done absolutely nothing in helping her learn how to fly. Ron would be impressed by her interest in his favorite sport, and maybe she could even discuss it with him. However, this plan, while a sound one, didn't give her something to discuss with him now.

As for candy, Hermione's parents were dentists, after all, and they rarely (if ever) let her have sweets. For a minute, she considered telling Ron about Muggle sweets and chocolates, but since none of them were ever as good as their Wizarding counterparts, that seemed more than a little pointless.

Hermione groaned in frustration and finally, sticking her quill in the ink pot on her desk, she decided she would just have to write him the same sort of letter she'd written to Harry. Maybe Ron, coming from a Wizarding family, would find her boring Muggle life interesting. He had said after all, that his dad loved Muggles.

She wrote three drafts, each successively drier than the next, but when the fourth hour of "Let's write Ron a letter," rolled around, Hermione decided she had gone, as Ron himself would state it, absolutely bloody mental. Slapping her quill down on the desk, Hermione quickly proofread the last version of the letter, though she wondered why she was even bothering. She'd seen some of Ron's compositions last year. He wouldn't know a grammatical error if it came up and bit him in the arse.

She mailed off both letters the next afternoon and she told herself that there was no need to expect a reply from either of them. She was sure that Harry's awful Muggle relatives would forbid him from receiving or sending any Owl mail, and Ron, well. . .he was not exactly the corresponding type.

Still, when a letter dropped down the letter slot one morning two weeks later, Hermione was thrilled. She could see the messy, blotted writing even across the room and she knew it was from him. He'd written her back despite that he'd insisted he never even looked at parchment during the summer holiday.

As the summer drew to a close, Hermione counted down the weeks with an excitement that she'd never experienced before. She'd been excited about going to Hogwarts last summer, of course, but back then she hadn't had any idea how truly spectacular it was. And, a sly little voice added, she hadn't yet met Ron.

The first hint that Hermione had that something was wrong was when she couldn't find Ron or Harry on the train to Hogwarts. She'd seen them both in Diagon Alley, and they'd both been perfectly friendly—well, Harry had been anyway. Ron had been his usual obnoxious self, barely acknowledging her existence even though they'd corresponded with perfect civility over the summer. When she knew he wasn't looking, she rolled her eyes at his back. She would never understand boys who thought it was somehow less manly to be friends with girls.

If she had to confess, the train to Hogwarts had been much less fun without the two of them. She'd been forced to sit with Ginny, who was squirming and nervous in her seat. Hermione had considered asking her once or twice if she'd seen Harry or Ron, but considering the fuchsia shade Ginny blushed whenever anyone mentioned Harry's name, she'd decided against it.

Then, she asked Hagrid when they got into the station if he'd seen either Ron or Harry off, and he'd shaken his head. By the time Hermione reached the castle itself and made her way into the Great Hall, she was shaking with either anger or hurt or fear. She wasn't sure which of the three of it actually was, and it was entirely possible that it was a combination of all three. She was supposed to be their friend—how dare they leave her behind? And what if something bad had caught them? What if they'd somehow been taken by Voldemort? Even if they hadn't, Hermione thought it was extremely rude of them to just disappear this way, especially with such a horribly dark wizard on the loose who was just waiting for an opportunity to come face to face with Harry again.

Hermione could barely even force herself to watch the Sorting Ceremony, and though the Sorting Hat's song was just as wickedly clever and witty as ever, she didn't laugh. She couldn't. She could barely even muster up any enthusiasm when Ginny was sorted into Gryffindor.

Dinner was just being served when a wild rumor began to circulate down the Gryffindor table. At first she ignored it because the idea of Harry and Ron flying a car to Hogwarts and then crashing into the Whomping Willow was just too ridiculous to be true. They were stupid, yes, and occasionally very short-sighted, but this would be a new low for both of them.

Unfortunately, from the way that Ginny seemed to lift her head when she heard the news, Hermione had a sinking feeling that not only was this possible, it was probable. After all, if anyone would know the levels to which Ron Weasley could sink, it would be his baby sister.

Hermione felt a wave of hurt surge through her, followed by another of anger. Not only had they left her behind, they'd hadn't even told her where or what they were doing and as a result, she'd nearly worried herself sick. Pushing aside her uneaten pudding, Hermione decided to head towards the Common Room and wait for them to come crawling in.

As it happened, they were already at the Fat Lady's portrait, discussing possible passwords to get into Gryffindor Tower.

The words bubbled up inside her before she could even think about them or the way she'd sound when they erupted out of her mouth. She didn't want to be a know-it-all, or a annoyingly responsible do-gooder. In all honesty, she'd never been so bloody glad to see the pair of them ever. Hermione felt as if they'd taken years of her life tonight. "There you are! Where have you been? The most ridiculous rumors—someone said you'd been expelled for crashing a flying car."

Harry assured her that they hadn't been expelled—as if she cared if they'd been expelled. Hermione remembered her own words of only a year ago regarding how being expelled would be worse than dying and nearly shuddered at the thought.

She wanted to burst into tears and hug both of them, she was so relieved they were in one piece, but instead, she clamped her lips together and repeated herself. "You're not telling me you did fly here?"

An awkward silence fell over the trio. Harry looked down at his feet, clearly ashamed that they'd done such a ridiculously foolish thing, but Ron faced her straight on, his complexion turning almost as red as his hair. "Skip the lecture," he said, with a decidedly unfriendly tone, "and tell us the new password."

Hermione felt as if she'd been struck. He didn't even care that she'd been worried out of her mind. All he cared about was getting what he wanted from her and nothing else.

"It's wattlebird," she said, feeling as if something had very suddenly taken the wind out of her sails, "but that that's not the point."

Hermione was not surprised to see that the Common Room was full of Gryffindors celebrating the return of their most-famous member, Harry Potter, in the one of the most spectacular entrances in the history of Hogwarts. Hermione stood to the side as both Harry and Ron were congratulated by everyone. Gradually the room began to clear out, helped along by Percy Weasley, who was a Prefect.

Ron didn't glance her direction once, so eventually she turned towards the stairs of the girls dormitories'. Nothing about the evening had gone according to her much-fantasized about summer plans. She heard Harry say goodnight, but Ron continued to ignore her. Probably in punishment for his much-deserved lecture, she thought with venom as she climbed into her four-poster bed.

It would get better, she tried to tell herself as she lay awake listening to the other girls' snores. It had to get better—it certainly couldn't get much worse between them.

A week later, Hermione felt reasonably sure that she'd been right. After all, Ron had asked her if she'd like to watch the Gryffindor Quidditch practice with him, and she'd taken this as a sign that all her attempts at understanding Quidditch were paying off. He thought she was newly-interested in the game and that gave them some sort of common ground.

As a notice of good faith, Hermione even left every single book behind in her dormitory, showing up empty handed in the Common Room to meet Ron. Their walk to the Quidditch pitch was almost totally silent, though she spent the entire time forming good questions to ask when they sat down to watch the practice. Hermione was hoping that he hadn't suddenly regretted asking her to come along, and that was why he was so quiet. After all, the two of them so rarely did anything alone together. Harry was almost always with them.

They sat down on the empty stands, and Hermione felt Ron's leg brush hers, making her turn a million shades of red. Goodness, she thought, I had no idea this was going to be so bloody awkward. Ron was clearly feeling something along the same lines, because he still hadn't said more than two words put together to her.

However, the minute that Harry came out onto the pitch, Ron talked to him. Hermione felt a totally irrational twinge of jealousy and forced it down. Ron had asked her, after all. Whether he was regretting it now or not, he'd done it and at the very least, he could be civil to her.

Just then, she saw a glint of silver and green out of the corner of her eye, and her jaw dropped at the Slytherins who came marching out onto the pitch as if they owned it.

"Come on," she said, tugging on Ron's jumper. "Let's see what's going on." She didn't even turn back to see if he followed her, but with her special Ron sense, as she called it, she could nearly feel him behind her—as if there was some sort of invisible rope that connected the two of them.

Ron seemed even more flabbergasted by the seven new broomsticks facing him than the fact that Draco Malfoy was the new Slytherin seeker, but Hermione barely even noticed his slack-jawed expression as she churned with anger and annoyance at the superior Slytherin attitudes.

She wasn't, Hermione thought with rage, called the cleverest witch in her class for nothing. It was so easy to use all those brains to do something bad for a change—like conjure up a particularly cutting insult. "At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," she said with a trace of smugness in her tone. "They got in on pure talent."

She could tell by the way that Malfoy's expression flickered just the tiniest bit that she'd gotten a good solid hit in. For all that everyone seemed to be intimidated by Draco, she thought it was rather obvious where his weaknesses lay.

"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood," Draco spat back at her. Hermione shrugged the insult off. She didn't even know what he'd called and she didn't really care. Unlike Harry and Ron, she kind of ignored Draco. And unlike how every single one of Ron's teases cut her to the quick, Draco's barbs just deflected off her.

But to her utter shock, the words she didn't understand seemed to create chaos. Flint had to dive in front of Malfoy to prevent Fred and George from flattening him, and Ron, Ron, yanked his wand from the pocket of his jeans and pointed it firmly and decisively at Malfoy, his expression vengeful.

Except that Ron seemed to have forgotten that his wand had suffered a rather unfortunate accident in the Whomping Willow incident, and instead of cursing Malfoy, the spell he shouted backfired and hit him straight on. Ron flew and landed on his back on the grass.

All thoughts of Malfoy disappeared. All she could see was the redhead lying motionless on the ground. "Ron! Ron! Are you all right?" she nearly squealed, not even thinking about how downright terrified she sounded and how anyone paying even the tiniest bit of attention to her would know her secret in half a second.

She crouched near him, and felt a horrible tremor run through her at how green he looked—nearly as green as the grass he was lying on. Then, Ron leaned over and did the most disgusting thing she had ever seen in her entire life, both Muggle and Wizard. He threw up two huge, slimy looking slugs.

Hermione had to turn away for half a second, to prevent her own breakfast from joining Ron's.

"We'd better get him to Hagrid's, it's nearest," Harry said, taking control of the situation. Hermione nodded, though she couldn't help but look on helplessly as Ron continued to barf up slug after slug in the most wrenching display she'd ever witnessed.

Somehow, between her and Harry, they managed to get Ron to Hagrid's, and as he leaned over a bucket and proceeded to belch up slugs, Harry explained what had happened.

She'd been so shocked by what had happened to Ron that she'd almost forgotten what Draco had called her until Harry brought it up. Hagrid seemed rather taken aback by the name, but she had to confess she had no idea what it meant.

"He did," she said. "But I don't know what it means. I could tell it was really rude, of course."

Never in a million years had she expected Ron to try to right himself from his semi-prone position on the floor to explain. He looked absolutely wretched, cold sweat dotting his pale forehead, but he gasped out, "Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who is Muggle-born— you know, non-magic parents. There are some wizards—like Malfoy's family—who think they're better than everyone else because they're what people call pure-blood."

He dived back under the table to further rid himself of the slugs, and Hermione felt herself go still and silent. It had been a truly awful thing that Draco had called her. A terrible name. And Ron—silly, ridiculous, loyal Ron—had defended her.

She felt herself grow bright pink just as Hagrid said, "An' they haven't invented a spell our Hermione can' do." She hoped that everyone thought she was blushing at his compliment versus at the incredible gesture that Ron had made.

Hermione didn't know what to say to him. How did you even express gratitude to someone who belched up slugs after defending your honor?

"Thanks," she said quietly, but Hagrid and Harry were already lost in another discussion about Professor Lockhart and Ron had returned to his basin and she didn't think he'd heard her. She would tell him again, she swore to herself, looking at his bright red bobbing head, she would find some way to tell him how much all these slugs meant to her.


Awwwwwww. Young love :)

Book 1 and 2 have been really easy to pick. I am debating on scenes to depict for Book 3, The Prisoner of Azkaban. Any suggestions?