Middle hoop.. Middle hoop... Middle hoop... Left Hoop!
Ron pulled the handle of his broomstick. It immediately gave way, shooting left like a whistle through the sky. He reached out his hands and felt the sides of the quaffle pound against his palm.

"Great save, Ron!" Harry said while searching for the snitch in the growing twilight. They had been practising for an hour now, building up to the upcoming match against Slytherin a few weeks from now. Their team actually seemed to stand a chance. The beaters were really starting to get better, although they weren't up really to the old standards set by the Weasley twins yet. Still, their progress seemed to keep up, solidifying their chances at the house cup this year.

Ron noticed Hermione sitting in the stands close to the goal hoops. She was reading a book (naturally) and seemed only marginally interested in their practice. It was odd, Ron realized, that she would come and read here, if she wasn't really interested in the practice. She looked up at Ron and waved. The angelic smile on her face made Ron forget about everything, but the quaffle that hit him immediately afterwards on his head might have played a part in that too.
"Ron, if you're not to busy," Ginny yelled, "Would you mind paying some more attention to us?" For a moment, it looked like she wanted to say something else, probably a quick jibe, but she restrained herself and stayed silent. Hermione was looking at her book again, probably revising Arithmancy or reading ahead on History of Magic. He was going to have to talk to her about that soon.

Last year, Ron remembered, he had been completely tensed and nervous for his first match. He had been having nightmares for weeks leading up to his first match. Some people say that nerves go away when you get on stage, or when you start with a match. Ron's did the opposite. He nearly forgot how to use his broom on several occasions. He'd known why too. It wasn't the crowd's cheers or the pressure of needing to win. It wasn't fear for Slytherin or Loser's Lurgey, no, his nerves had failed him because of one person. She was sitting in the crowd, next to Harry when the match began, who had been banned from the game by Umbridge and was forced to watch from the stands. Ron's performance had been horrible. He had let quaffles in even a toddler could (and should) have blocked.

Every time he'd looked sideways, he saw Hermione looking at him expectantly. She wasn't interested at all in quidditch, but she never-the-less came to watch him keep that day. Ron didn't want to look like an utter fool in front of her, and had thus scared himself witless with nerves. Luckily for Gryffindor house, Hargrid chose just that match to tell them about Grawp, causing them to leave. Without the pressure of Hermione's admiring stare, his performance increased greatly. His drive to show the opponents and Hermione his skill in keeping managed to secure Gryffindor house the win. He had naturally never told her this, choosing to act surprised when they told him they hadn't seen him.

Ron quickly shot his hands out. He reached for the middle hoop, which had become exposed during his absent-mindedness and deflected the quaffle enough to overshoot it's target.
"Ron!" Harry bellowed, "Weren't you just told to keep your mind at the game?"
"Sorry, It won't happen again."
Ginny looked at him in a bemused way. She looked like she wanted to say something again and was barely managing to keep it in. She quickly turned her broom around, trying to retake the quaffle, when something tiny and golden fluttered in front of Ron's eyes. It whirred passed his ears and prodded his head playfully.
That's strange, I've never seen a snitch act so oddly.
It was then when Ron noticed that a small piece of parchment was trailing the Golden Snitch. He reached out to grab it, but the snitch jerked back immediately.
At the same time, Ron noticed Ginny had retrieved the quaffle and was hurtling back at him, getting ready to throw.
Ron leaned forward on his broom, shot his hands out to the snitch and yanked the parchment off. At the mean time, he slipped off his broom sideways and kicked at the quaffle Ginny had just rocketed off to the left goal hoop. Again, the quaffle changed direction and flew passed the hoop, nearly scraping its sides.
"Now that, my friends," Harry began, "Is how you become keeper for Gryffindor. Spectacular save, Ron."

Ron quickly got back on his broom and pocketed the parchment. He glanced at the stands, where Hermione had been sitting up to that point. She wasn't there any more. After a quick check, he saw her walking down the stairs with a smile on her face, packing her wand in her robes.

When Ron left the quidditch field, he was bruised and battered, but above all, very excited. He was itching to read Hermione's latest riddle, ready to have a crack at it. While Harry was laughing merrily with Ginny about the Slytherins team, while he kept increasing his pace, walking faster and faster back to Hogwarts.
"Late for another date with Lavender, huh, Ron?" Ginny said.
"Uhh, yeah. So I'd better hurry up."
Ron quickened his pace into a run and stormed up to the common room. When he got through the portrait hole, he noticed Lavender sitting in the corner.
"Hi Ron," she said, "Are you going to sit next to me?"
"Sure, I'll just have to take a shower before I do."

Ron had been thinking about his relationship with Lavender. He had been neglecting even the smallest of favours and gallantries. He felt bad for treating her this way, so he had decided to give her some more attention, at least for the time being. He really wanted to read the riddle and solve it, but he couldn't keep pushing her aside. Even though he didn't love her, and wanted to end their relationship, he wouldn't neglect her until he found a suitable way to tell her he wanted out.

When Ron entered the showers, he used his wand to perform the Impervius charm on the parchment, so he could read it under the shower. He checked to see if the curse was working and quickly stepped into the shower. He unfolded the parchment, immediately recognising Hermione's handwriting.

"1) The amount of uses for Dragon's Blood, as defined by Albus Dumbledore.
2) Your fathers age minus your mothers age times your sisters age plus one.
3) The amount of galleon's you get for 10846 knuts.
4) The third number, minus the second number and the first number plus ten.

Put these numbers after each other and find out what I do.

- Hermione"

Bollocks. If it had been short, I might have remembered it. Now I'll have to wait till I get a chance to get on my own. He tucked the parchment into his trunk and cleaned himself up. When he got downstairs, he sat down next to Lavender, prepared for another hour of complete nonsense and gossip.
"Hey Ron," Lavender said hoarsly, "I've missed you."
"Whut? Yeah, I've missed you too, I guess."
Lavender sat down on his lap and kissed him. It was an exceptionally wet and enthousiastic kiss. She sat down against him, pressing herself against him. Ron closed his eyes, but even then he could not imagine Lavender kissing like Hermione. She was all tongue and no passion. Hermione's kisses might be more delicate, they certainly were more passionate. Lavenders hands slided from his chest to his sides, from his sides to his hips.
"Whaw awe yuw duwing?" Ron tried to say with her tongue in his mouth.
"Nothing, just cuddling with my Won Won."
Ron suddenly realized that she was probing him. Not in the usual, eellike way she normally kissed him, but in a searching way. She was trying to find the riddle! Luckily, Ron had left the riddle safely locked away in his trunk by his bed. He had placed a charm on it, making the lock unpickable and risitant to most spells, just like all boys of sixteen would do on their personal belongings. Only Hermione would have been able to open that trunk, or the teachers of course.

Lavender's hands continued to search his pockets, trying to find a piece of parchment. Ron let her search, knowing she would not find anything incriminating. She slid her hands over his entire body, going from pocket to pocket while kissing him ever more ferociously. In the end, she nearly dragged him off the couch, searching the back of his pants.
"Wavendew, Whaw awe yew duwing?", Ron said again, trying to act innocent.
Lavender stopped kissing him. She looked into his eyes and said nothing.

Ron knew what she was doing. She was looking into his eyes to see if it would draw out an emotion. It was working too. Her glassy blue eyes were starting to make him feel guilty. He knew he was hurting her by lying to her, but it was for her own good. She would feel horrible if she knew he had been in love with Hermione all along. Still, he couldn't feel happy about it.

Ron had always seen his father as a role model for a husband. And his father loved his mother deeply, and cared for her in the best way. They might squabble sometimes, they might not always agree, but he treated her with the loving respect Ron had come to accept as obvious. Ron felt that he had to be equal to his father in this loving and caring approach to the woman he loved. Ron would hold the door open, would buy her red roses for her birthday and would hug her everyday before going to sleep. He had always felt like this was natural, a normal way to treat the most special lady in his life.

Lavender stood up.
"You're hiding something from me."
"No I'm not."
"Yes you are," she said with a slow voice, "and I know you are lying. I will find out what it is."
Ron didn't reply. He knew enough of his fights with Hermione and his parents fights that he didn't need to say anything. She would walk away and glare at him for a while. If he replied, the fight would only intensify. She promptly walked away and indeed glared at him, just like he had predicted.

Ron decided to go some place quiet for a while to think. He would not risk going up to the dormitories to get the riddle, if he'd meet Lavender and she asked to frisk him again, she would find it.
"Better to let it cool down for a while," he thought, "I'll go and relax."
Ron stood up and decided to go to the prefect's bathroom. He would have a nice long soak, not the quick scrub he had just given himself. He walked to the fourth floor, and spoke the password to the fourth door. It opened up immediately, allowing him access to the marble-lined room. The mermaid was sitting in her picture, gently combing her hair, while Ron opened the seventh and twenty-third taps on the right side of the tub (vanilla and teak). He had been there quite a lot of times and had found those taps to smell nicest in combination. He slipped out of his clothes and into the water.

For some reason, the water always felt different than at home. It was softer, like wearing a velvet glove, perfectly enclosing your body. It would never make your skin wrinkly, even if you spent hours in it. The bubbles were big and had an alternately yellow and brown sheen. When the popped, they released an aroma so delicate and faint, it made you feel like the scent was actually snuffed out by smelling it. The water was covered with bubbles of varying sizes, some big and heavy, others small and packed. Ron couldn't see through the water any more, so he decided to close the taps. It was a lovely feeling to lie there, feeling the water warming his body. It was in moments like this that Ron could close his eyes and relax a little.

Ron noticed something was wrong when he felt a breath of cold air passing over his face. The door had been opened and was now closing again. Ron reached for his wand, only to realize he had left it in his pants.
"Funny isn't it? How some people need their wands to be brave..."
Ron recognised the voice even before he had looked at his clothes. They were lying in a heap on the floor, and a blonde figure was standing over them. The figure straightened and looked at him with a victorious smile on his face.
"Weasle king, you know better than this. With Ollivander gone, you have to keep your wand safe. If it happens to break, you would never be able to buy a good one. Not that your parents could ever afford one," Malfoy said while toying with Ron's wand in his hand, "Unless they sold that ugly sister of yours, she might fetch a galleon or two."
Ron immediately realized the desperation of the situation he was in. Malfoy could snap his wand in two, leaving him wandless, and above all, alone with him. He would be able to curse him with anything without anybody knowing about it.

Draco put the wand upright on the ground and placed his foot over it. If he put it down hard enough, his wand would be destroyed.
"I'm going to enjoy this. Do you think it will give that nice, crunchy sound?"
Ron had to do something. In their first year, they had been told that if a wizard is strong enough, he could do spells without a wand. The effects would be less powerful, but it was worth trying. Ron closed his eyes and concentrated. He reached out for his wand under water and tried to retrieve it.
"ACCIO WAND!" he bellowed, just as Malfoy's foot shot down. For a moment, he thought it had gone wrong. Malfoy's foot pounded the ground, but he had heard no sounds of snapping wood, no crunchy sound of a splintering wand. Moments later, he felt his fingers closing around his wand, completely unscathed.
"EXPELLIARMUS!"
Suddenly, the roles had changed. Ron was holding his own wand, and Malfoy's, who was looking at him in a bewildered way.
"How did you get it without a wand?" he asked furiously, "It's not possible."
"It is, as you can see for yourself."
Ron played with the wand in his hands. He could snap it in half right now, and Malfoy would not be able to do a thing about it. Malfoy seemed to realize this at the same time, by the look on his face. He gazed in horror as Ron's fingers closed around it's base.

"It's funny indeed, how some people need their wands to be brave..."
For a moment, Ron actually thought about doing it. Draco had insulted them on so many occasions, cursed them on so many days, it felt like an injustice not to break it. But Ron's conscience remembered him of his own moral standards. It was a low thing to do, breaking a wizard's wand, and Ron wasn't about to lower himself to Draco's standards. Threatening to do so was a wholly different thing though. He bent Malfoy's wand slowly, until it started to strain under the pressure. Malfoy went pale, his eyes bulging as his wand bent in Ron's hands. Ron let it go on one side, causing the wand to shoot out of his fingers. It flew into the bath in a pretty arc and a soft "plop", then slowly sank to the bottom.

Malfoy looked puzzled. Ron closed his fingers around a big golden lever next to him.
"The itsy, bitsy spider, climbed up the water spout," Ron said in a singsong voice.
Ron pulled the lever, opening the bath plug next to the wand.
"Down came the rain, and washed the spider out."
The underwater currents started to pull at Ron's feet. Draco's wand got caught in one of the currents and it promptly shot down into the pipes. Malfoy ran out of the room angrily, hoping to retrieve his wand.
"Ask the giant squid if he has seen it lately!" Ron shouted after him merrily.
"That was worth every curse and insult over the last few years."

Ron stepped out of the bath and wrapped a towel around himself. When he was sufficiently dry, he put his clothes back on and headed back up to the dormitories. It was about nine o'clock, so it would probably be packed by now. Ron climbed through the portraithole and looked around for anyone interesting. Lavender was sitting by the fire, talking animatedly with Padma. She waved at him nonchalantly, Ron returning it half-heartedly. Hermione wasn't there. She spent a lot of time in the libraries these days, trying to help Harry find a way to convince Slughorn go give him the memory. Ron walked up the stairs to the dormitory. Perhaps he could risk taking another quick look at Hermione's riddle.

Before Ron had realized, he'd spent ten minutes on his bed, trying to find out how old his parents were. The first part was easy, he'd read enough chocolate frog cards to know that number was twelve. After making a quick calculation, he'd found out that 10846 knuts was twenty-two Galleons.

Suddenly, he realized that he didn't need to know the age of his parents, because he knew his father was one year older than is mother.
"So it's one times my sisters age plus one. That's fifteen!", Ron thought correctly.
"So the numbers are 12, 15, 22, and (after another quick sum) 5. That went easily enough."

The last line of the riddle proved to be the hardest: "Put these numbers after each other and find out what I do." Ron tried to think of anything that would combine these numbers into something sensible, yet for a long time, he could not think of anything. He tried calculating the differences, adding them together, he even looked up the 5th of December 1522 in Neville's History of Magic books. Then, Ron tried to think of the numbers in combination with the other solutions.

This had been bothering him for quite some time now. Every riddle was solved with a strange answer. The first answer was a small riddle about something that hadn't been said. The second answer was "Potions". The third was "the sense of smell, or smelling" and now this. The numbers didn't make sense. There were three answers, and four numbers. All the other answers had been words, so it would only make sense if this answer was another word or sentence.

Suddenly it dawned to him. The numbers represented letters. One was A, two was B, etcetera.
Ron quickly picked up a piece of parchment and wrote down the alphabet. He counted the letters and circled those who's number was in the answer. From left to right, he read, "ELOV", but in the order of the riddle, it was LOVE. He had found the answer!

So the answer to the fourth riddle is "Love", Ron thought, but what do all the answers mean together? And what does this have to do with the imprint on my socks?

Ron locked the riddle and the answers in his trunk and laid himself down on his bed. It had been a good day. Tomorrow, he would tell Hermione the answer, end his relationship with Lavender and give up his prefect duty. He fell asleep, rereading the answers in his mind. Love, Potions, The Burrow, Sense of Smell, never spoken, love, potions, burrow, smell, never spoken, love, potions...