Chapter 26: Mudblood

For the next few days, Harry spent most of his time trying to avoid his groupies. Dodging Lockhart was easy enough, as we would rush out the class as soon as the bell rung. But it was harder to avoid was Colin, who seemed to have memorized Harry's schedule. Nothing seemed to give Colin a bigger thrill than to say, "All right, Harry?" six or seven times a day and hear, "Hello, Colin," back, however exasperated Harry sounded when he said it.

My wand was still acting wonky and messing up in my classes. I almost pulled a Seamus and set my robes on fire in Charms.

One very early morning, I was awakened by Wood being in our dorm, waking Harry up for an early practice. He begrudgingly got up. Got dressed, and went on. I tried to go back to sleep for like an hour, but I kept waking up. So, I decided to go down to the common room and answer Bill's letter that I had gotten a few days prior.

Dear Bill,

Your cuss out was very unnecessary. I had already been chewed it heavily by Mum with her bloody Howler, and then getting a very short but cutthroat letter from Charlie. So I'm over your little letter. But I do promise never to do something stupid like that again. Luckily Dad didn't catch too much flack for it, but we can't find the car.

Classes are dreadful. It's not that the lessons are hard or anything. My situation is just complicated right now. My grades aren't falling, so that's a good thing.

Harry is being harassed by some ickle firstie named Colin and our peacock of a DADA teacher Lockhart. Colin is always wanting to take pictures of him, and Lockhart is always giving him "fame advice" that Harry doesn't need nor want. He doesn't like all the attention he has been getting. One of these days, he will probably snap and hex them all.

Hermione is doing brilliant, as usual. She seems to be like every other barmy witch and fancy fucking Lockhart. What is it about him that make women go mental? She is always giving him some dopey look. The other day, I seen that she had drawn hearts around his bloody name. Ridiculous. He's old as hell. He isn't all that much of a looker, and he seems like a crock of shit. He doesn't seem to know what he is doing for someone who has done all he claimed he did in his books.

I hope the next letter I get from you is kinder and not filled with words like "dumbass" or "being a complete wanker" or "need to grow the hell up". I'm only 12, William. I'm just a kid. Let me live.

Hope you're doing well.

Love your favorite brother,

Ron

P.S.: You're a git

By the time I had finished the letter, Hermione has made her way down from her dorm. As she stretched at the landing, she seen me and looked confused.

"You're up early on a weekend day." she said.

"Harry got bombarded by Wood earlier and woke me up in the process. I just finished a letter for Bill. Wanna walk with me to mail it?"

"Sure. Just let me go and grab my letter to my parents." she said, running back to her dorm for a minute, then returning with a letter as well as a book.

Of course.

We walked to the owlery where we had two school owls take our letters since Hedwig was taking her still attitude out on all of us for the whole car fiasco. Then, we headed down to the Quidditch pitch to watch Harry, seeing as we had nothing else left to do. But not before stopping off and grabbing some breakfast and taking it along with us.

"Aren't you finished yet?" I yelled from the stands.

"Haven't even started." he yelled back. "Wood's been teaching us new moves."

I laughed. "Wood is intense." I told Hermione.

"It's like he lives and breathes Quidditch." she said, as if it was a ridiculous notion or something.

"Oh, just like you live and breathe books?" I retorted.

"I do not live and breathe books!"

"Oh sorry. You live and breathe books and Lockhart." I joked, throwing a rim off my toast at her, which she smacked away and in turn laughed as she popped me with my book and told me to shut my mouth.

Suddenly we heard several clicks. We turned around and seen that Colin was a few seats higher than us, snapping pictures at the quidditch pitch.

"That kid is bloody mental." I mumbled.

"Look this way Harry!" he yelled, taking shot after shot as Harry and the team looked at him like he was nuts.

"Gets worse from here." said Hermione, getting up with her book and pointing to the field.

The Slytherin team was approaching the Gryffindor team. And in the middle of them with his shiny unicorn hair was...

"What's Malfoy doing with them? And with a broom?" said Hermione.

"Let's go." I said, rushing from the stands.

We ran down the stairs and onto the field. Flint, Malfoy, and Wood looked like they were about to square off.

"What's happening? Why aren't you playing? And what's he doing here?" I asked, pointing at Malfoy.

"I'm the new Slytherin Seeker, Weasley," said Malfoy, smugly. "Everyone's just been admiring the brooms my father's bought our team.

Nimbus 2001s. I didn't want to be impressed at all, but I couldn't help but be. They were the latest model of racing brooms.

"Good, aren't they?" said Malfoy. "But perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and get new brooms, too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives. I expect a museum would bid for them."

The Slytherin team howled with laughter.

"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," said Hermione sharply. " They got in on pure talent."

I couldn't help but grin at her. This was the first time she had ever snapped at Malfoy. I was proud

Malfoy however, wasn't impressed, because the smug smirk he had had disappeared and was replaced with a look of disgust.

"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood." he spat.

Everything was tuned out in my mind. I didn't see anyone but Malfoy as I felt my anger rise to a dangerous level.

"How dare you!" I yelled, pulling out my wand and pointing it straight at that bloody prick's face. "You'll pay for that one, Malfoy! EAT SLUGS!"

A loud bang came out of my wand and a jet of green light shot out of the wrong end, hitting me hard in the stomach and sending me flying backwards into the grass. I suddenly felt extremely ill

"Ron! Ron! Are you alright?" I believed I heard Hermione say.

I sat up, my stomach feeling horribly queasy. I opened my mouth to speak, but instead of words, I felt something nasty emerge from my throat. I gave a great belch and several slugs made their way out of my mouth and into my lap.

I couldn't pay attention to the chaos around me. I couldn't tell who was yelling my name, who was laughing, and who had helped me off the ground. Another burn and even more slugs came out. The taste was revolting, I felt as if I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

"We'd better get him to Hagrid's, it's nearest." I heard Harry say.

"What happened, Harry? What happened? Is he ill? But you can cure him, can't you?" came the little squeak toy voice of Colin. I heaved and about a dozen note came out my mouth.

"Oooh!" said Colin, fascinated. I looked over and seen that he had his camera ready to snap a picture. "Can you hold him still, Harry?"

"Get out of the way, Colin!" said Harry angrily. He and Hermione put themselves under my arms and rushed me out of the stadium and across the grounds toward the edge of the forest.

Along the way, the slugs kept coming from my stomach. I felt like complete shit.

"Nearly there, Ron." said Hermione, trying to reassure me. "You'll be alright in a minute, almost there..."

We were within twenty feet of Hagrid's house when the front door opened. Fucking Lockhart came strutting out like the proud peacock he was. I had the urge to throw up slugs on his expensive robes.

"Quick, behind here," Harry hissed, dragging me behind a nearby bush. Hermione wasn't trying to, but she came anyways, moving quickly out the way as I burped up more slugs.

"It's a simple matter if you know what you're doing!" Lockhart was saying loudly to Hagrid. "If you need help, you know where I am! I'll let you have a copy of my book. I'm surprised you haven't already got one - I'll sign one tonight and send it over. Well, good-bye!" And he strode away toward the castle.

We waited until Lockhart was out of sight, then went up to Hagrid's and Harry knocked on the front door.

Hagrid appeared at once, looking very grumpy, but his expression brightened when he saw it was us.

"Bin wonderin'when you'd come ter see me - come in, come in - thought you mighta bin Professor Lockhart back again-"

Harry and Hermione helped me into the house and into Hagrid's big chair. They explained what had happened as I burped out more slugs on the floor, which Hagrid didn't seem to mind too much about.

"Better out than in," he said cheerfully, setting a huge bucket in front of me. "Get em all up, Ron."

"I don't think there's anything to do except wait for it to stop." said Hermione sadly, watching as I bent over and pushed more slugs out of my mouth and into the bucket. "That's a difficult curse to work at the best of times, but with a broken wand-"

Hermione rubbed my back as I spat out more slugs. I really wanted a glass of water, but I felt like it would only make things even more gross.

"What did Lockhart want with you, Hagrid?" Harry asked, scratching Fang's ears.

"Givin'me advice on gettin'kelpies out of a well," growled Hagrid, moving a half-plucked rooster off his scrubbed table and setting down the teapot. "Like I don'know. An'bangin'on about some banshee he banished. If one word of it was true, I'll eat my kettle."

I wanted to laugh, but that moment, two more slugs came busting out of my mouth.

"I think you're being a bit unfair. Professor Dumbledore obviously thought he was the best man for the job." defended Hermione, causing me to roll my eyes.

"He was the on'y man for the job," said Hagrid. "An'I mean the on'y one. Gettin'very difficult ter find anyone fer the Dark Arts job. People aren't too keen ter take it on, see. They're startin'ter think it's jinxed. No one's lasted long fer a while now. So tell me. Who was Ron tryin'ter curse?"

"Malfoy called Hermione something - it must've been really bad, because everyone went wild." said Harry

"It was bad." I managed to say, my face starting to sweat. "Malfoy called her Mudblood, Hagrid."

I burped and more slugs fell into the bucket. It was halfway full.

"He didn'!" he growled at Hermione.

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

"It's about the most insulting thing he could think of." I said, feeling myself get angry again."Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who is Muggleborn. You know, non-magic parents."

Hermione looked at the ground, tears starting to fall.

"There are some wizards - like Malfoy's family - who think they're better than everyone else because they're what people call pure-blood. I mean, the rest of us know it doesn't make any difference at all. Look at Neville. He's pure-blood and he can hardly stand a cauldron the right way up."I said, burping up another slug, catching it in my hand, and throwing it into the bucket.

"An'they haven't invented a spell our Hermione can't do," said Hagrid proudly, making Hermione blush and smile a bit.

"It's a disgusting thing to call someone." I said wiping the sweat off my brow. "Dirty blood, see. Common blood. It's ridiculous. Most wizards these days are half-blood anyway. If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out."

I felt myself ready the throw up again and dropped my head into the filling bucket.

"Well, I don'blame yeh fer tryin'ter curse him, Ron," said Hagrid loudly over the thuds of me throwing up more slugs . "Bu'maybe it was a good thing yer wand backfired. Spect Lucius Malfoy would've come marchin'up ter school if yeh'd cursed his son. Least yer not in trouble."

We stayed a bit longer until it seemed like I wasn't going to burp up any more slugs. We headed up to the castle, where on the way, I ended up burping up two more.

We were heading to lunch, when we were stopped my McGonagall. I felt myself getting sick all over again. I said a quick prayer that I wouldn't throw up over this woman's robes.

"There you are, Potter, Weasley." she said."You will both do your detentions this evening."

"What're we doing, Professor?" I said, feeling myself wanting to throw up, but holding it back.

"You will be polishing the silver in the trophy room with Mr. Filch," said Professor McGonagall. "And no magic, Weasley - elbow grease."

I groaned. Last thing I wanted to do would spend an evening cleaning with Filch.

"And you, Potter, will be helping Professor Lockhart answer his fan mail." said Professor McGonagall.

"Oh n- Professor, can't I go and do the trophy room, too?" said Harry desperately.

"Certainly not," said Professor McGonagall. "Professor Lockhart requested you particularly. Eight o'clock sharp, both of you."

Harry and I slouched into the Great Hall, Hermione behind us, wearing a well-you-did-break-school-rules sort of expression. We couldn't even enjoy our shepherd's pie. Detention was going to suck for the both of us.

"Filch'll have me there all night." I sighed, resting my head on the table. "No magic! There must be about a hundred cups in that room. I'm no good at Muggle cleaning."

"I'd swap anytime." said Harry.

"I've had loads of practice with the Dursleys. Answering Lockhart's fan mail... he'll be a nightmare..."

The afternoon passed quickly, and soon enough it was time for detention. Filch stood proudly over me as I scrubbed trophy after trophy. I had to do some of them over, because slugs kept coming up and getting them slimy.

It was almost 11 when I made it back to the common room. Hermione was sitting by the fireplace, reading a book.

"Hey." I said, plopping down beside her, resting my head on her shoulder. She stiffened up at first, and then relaxed, probably nervous that I would throw up a slug on her.

"How was detention?" she asked, looking back down at her book.

"Brutal. I kept throwing up on the trophies, so I had to clean them over. Filch seemed thrilled." I said, rubbing my wrist.

"About that...I wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

"For...for burping up slugs for me." she said slowly. "You didn't have to curse Malfoy over that, but you did. And even though it backfired-"

"Of course I had to." I said, raising up off of her shoulder and looking at her as if she were crazy. "He insulted you in one of the worse ways you can insult someone in the wizarding world. There isn't anything dirty about you nor your blood. Hell, you can do spells better than probably his father, and a hell of a lot better than him. You're my best friend. So I don't mind burping slugs over berthing there for you."

Hermione closed her book and gave me a genuine smile. I smiled back. I couldn't help but feel protective over her. It wasn't the same as me protecting my sister. I really didn't know what it was.

All I knew was that she was my best mate. And I needed to be there for her.

I told her I was heading up to my dorm. I walked in, arm still hurting, and sat in my bed.

Harry spring up, clearly waiting for me to return.

"What happened to your arm?"

"My muscles have all seized up," I groaned. "Fourteen times he made me buff up that Quidditch cup before he was satisfied. And then I had another slug attack all over a Special Award for Services to the School. Took ages to get the slime off... How was it with Lockhart?"

Keeping his voice low so as not to wake Neville, Dean, and Seamus, Harry told me the barmiest story. About how he had spent hours being bored with Lockhart and all of a sudden, he started hearing a voice. A voice that seemed I like it was telling someone to let them rip and kill them.

"And Lockhart said he couldn't hear it? D'you think he was lying? But I don't get it - even someone invisible would've had to open the door."

"I know," said Harry, laying back in his four-poster and staring at the canopy above him. "I don't get it either."