Sorry so late. Last week was hectic and my daughter turned 4 and I know some of y'all know how that is with a kid's birthday. Also, life and stuff. Hopefully by next week, I will be back on track. I'm eager to get out of OOTP so I can REALLY get some Romione in.

I have said in another one of my fics that I suck at writing Quidditch. I'm not that big on Quidditch. I would have probably went to the games if Gryffindor played as support for my house (and for Ron lol). I'm like Hermione with the game. So I am hoping so much that I get this as right as I can to give Ron some justice when he really became the King.

Here goes lol.

Chapter 152: Long Live The King

The story of Fred and George's flight to freedom was retold so often over the next few days that it would more than likely end up in the next edition of Hogwarts, a History. Within a week, even those who had been eyewitnesses were half-convinced they had seen the twins dive-bomb Umbridge on their brooms and pelt her with Dungbombs before zooming out of the doors. Many people were starting to become inspired to do the same thing. Students saying things like, "Honestly, some days I just feel like jumping on my broom and leaving this place," or else, "One more lesson like that and I might just do a Weasley."

Fred and George had made sure nobody was likely to forget them too soon. For one thing, they had not left instructions on how to remove the swamp that now filled the corridor on the fifth floor of the east wing. Umbitch and Filch had been trying different means of removing it but without success. Eventually, the area was roped off and Filch was given the delightful task of punting students across it to their classrooms. The three of us were certain that teachers like McGonagall or Flitwick could have removed the swamp in an instant but, just as in the case of Fred and George's Wildfire Whiz-bangs, they seemed to prefer to watch Umbridge struggle.

Inspired by Fred and George's example, some students were now starting to do their own little pranks. In spite of the new door, somebody managed to slip a Niffler into Umbridge's office, which promptly tore the place apart in its search for shiny objects, leapt on Umbridge when she entered and tried to gnaw the rings off her stubby fingers. Dungbombs and Stink Pellets were dropped so frequently in the corridors that it became the new fashion for us students to perform Bubble-Head Charms on ourselves before leaving lessons, which ensured us a supply of fresh air.

The Inquisitorial Squad and Filch were kept night and day running around trying to catch people in the acts of wrongdoing, but odd things kept happening to its members. Warrington of the Slytherin Quidditch team reported to the hospital wing with a horrible skin complaint that made him look as though he had been coated in cornflakes; Pansy, to Hermione's delight, missed all her lessons the following day as she had sprouted antlers.

Meanwhile, it became clear just how many Skiving Snackboxes Fred and George had managed to sell before leaving Hogwarts. Umbridge only had to enter her classroom for the students assembled there to faint, vomit, develop dangerous fevers or else spout blood from both nostrils. Shrieking with rage and frustration, she attempted to trace the mysterious symptoms to their source, but the students told her stubbornly they were suffering from "Umbridge-itis". After putting four successive classes in detention and failing to discover their secret, she was forced to give up and allow the bleeding, swooning, sweating and vomiting students to leave her classes in droves.

Despite Hermione and I being prefects, neither one of us were appointed to help with Umbridge in her disciplining the other students. It was fun watching everyone openly defy her, teachers included.

But not even the users of the Snackboxes could compete with that master of chaos, Peeves, who seemed to have taken Fred's parting words deeply to heart. Cackling madly, he soared through the school, upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, toppling statues and vases; twice he shut Mrs. Norris inside a suit of armor, from which she was rescued, yowling loudly, by Filch. Peeves smashed lanterns and snuffed out candles, juggled burning torches over the heads of screaming students, caused neatly stacked piles of parchment to topple into fires or out of windows; flooded the second floor when he pulled off all the taps in the bathrooms, dropped a bag of tarantulas in the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast and, whenever he fancied a break, spent hours at a time floating along after Umbridge and blowing loud raspberries every time she spoke.

None of the staff but Filch helped her. As a matter of fact, they seemed just as amused as us students. A week after Fred and George's departure Harry and I saw Professor McGonagall walking right past Peeves, who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier, and we could have sworn we heard her tell him "It unscrews the other way."

To top it all off, fucking Montague had still not recovered from his ride in the toilet; he remained confused and disorientated and his parents were to be observed one Tuesday morning striding up the front drive, looking extremely angry.

"Should we say something?" said Hermione in a worried voice, pressing her cheek against the Charms window so that she could see Mr. and Mrs. Montague marching inside. "About what happened to him? In case it helps Madam Pomfrey cure him?"

"Course not, he'll recover," I said, looking through my Charms book.

"Anyway, more trouble for Umbridge, isn't it?" said Harry in a satisfied voice.

Harry and I both tapped the teacups we were supposed to be charming with our wands. Harry's spouted four very short legs that could not reach the desk and wriggled pointlessly in midair. Mine grew four very thin spindly legs that hoisted the cup off the desk with great difficulty, trembled for a few seconds, then folded, causing the cup to crack into two.

"Reparo," said Hermione quickly, mending my cup with a wave of her wand. "That's all very well, but what if Montague's permanently injured?"

"Who bloody cares? Montague shouldn't have tried to take all those points from Gryffindor, should he? If you want to worry about anyone, Hermione, worry about me!" I said to her.

"You?" she said, catching her teacup as it scampered happily away across the desk on four sturdy little willow-patterned legs, and replacing it in front of her. "Why should I be worried about you?"

"When Mum's next letter finally gets through Umbridge's screening process," I said as I held my cup up while its frail legs tried feebly to support its weight, "I'm going to be in deep trouble. I wouldn't be surprised if she's sent another Howler."

"But-"

"It'll be my fault Fred and George left, you wait. She'll say I should've stopped them leaving, I should've grabbed the ends of their brooms and hung on or something ... yeah, it'll be all my fault."

"Well, if she does say that it'll be very unfair, you couldn't have done anything! But I'm sure she won't, I mean, if it's really true they've got premises in Diagon Alley, they must have been planning this for ages."

"Yeah, but that's another thing, how did they get premises?" I said, hitting my teacup so hard with my wand that its legs collapsed again and it lay twitching in front of me. Bugger. "It's a bit dodgy, isn't it? They'll need loads of Galleons to afford the rent on a place in Diagon Alley. She'll want to know what they've been up to, to get their hands on that sort of gold."

"Well, yes, that occurred to me, too," said Hermione, allowing her teacup to jog in neat little circles around Harry's, whose stubby little legs were still unable to touch the desktop, "I've been wondering whether Mundungus has persuaded them to sell stolen goods or something awful."

"He hasn't," said Harry quickly.

"How do you know?" asked Hermione and I at the same time.

"Because...Because they got the gold from me. I gave them my Triwizard winnings last June." sighed Harry.

There was a shocked silence, then Hermione's teacup jogged right over the edge of the desk and smashed on the floor. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it.

"Oh, Harry, you didn't!" she said.

"Yes, I did,'"said Harry. "And I don't regret it, either. I didn't need the gold and they'll be great at running a joke shop."

"But this is brilliant!" I said, thrilled. "It's all your fault, Harry-Mum can't blame me at all! Can I tell her?"

"Yeah, I suppose you'd better," said Harry dully, " 'specially if she thinks they're receiving stolen cauldrons or something"

Hermione said nothing at all for the rest of the lesson, but I knew she wasn't going to let Harry hear the end of it. She might have thought that Harry was barmy for what he did, but I for one thought it was great.

Sure enough, once we had left the castle for break and were standing around outside, she fixed Harry with a beady eye and opened her mouth with a determined air.

Harry interrupted her before she had even started.

"It's no good nagging me, it's done," he said firmly. "Fred and George have got the gold- spent a good bit of it, too, by the sounds of it-and I can't get it back from them and I don't want to. So save your breath, Hermione."

"I wasn't going to say anything about Fred and George!" she said in an offended voice.

I snorted at her, not believing a word of what she said. Hermione threw me a very dirty look, which I shrugged off.

"No, I wasn't!" she said angrily. "As a matter of fact, I was going to ask Harry when he's going to go back to Snape and ask for more Occlumency lessons!"

Harry looked as if he was about to comment, but quickly shut his mouth.

"You can't tell me you've stopped having funny dreams," Hermione said, "because Ron told me you were muttering in your sleep again last night."

Harry threw me a furious look. I gave him a look of pity, reminding myself to get into Hermione for opening her big mouth.

"You were only muttering a bit. Something about 'just a bit further'." I mumbled.

"I dreamed I was watching you lot play Quidditch," Harry said nastily. 'I was trying to get you to stretch out a bit further to grab the Quaffle."

I looked down at the ground in shame. Of course he would be dreaming about me being a bloody failure out on the pitch.

"You are trying to block your mind, aren't you?" said. Hermione, looking beadily at Harry. "You are keeping going with your Occlumency?"

"Of course I am," said Harry, as if he were insulted that she would even ask such a question.

"You know," I said, still feeling embarrassed, "if Montague doesn't recover before Slytherin play Hufflepuff, we might be in with a chance of winning the Cup."

"Yeah, I s'pose so," said Harry, with a bit of enthusiasm.

"I mean, we've won one, lost one-if Slytherin lose to Hufflepuff next Saturday-"

"Yeah, that's right," said Harry in a distracted voice. He was too busy watching Cho cross the courtyard, determined not to look at him.

Poor sod.

On the morning of the final match, Hermione once again sat and encouraged me to eat breakfast, only she wasn't trying to fly the spoon into my mouth.

"Eat, Ron. You'll need your strength." said Hermione, pushing the plate of bacon and eggs directly in front of my grim looking face.

"You're right. I mean, I can't get any worse, can I?' I told Harry and Hermione as I stared at the plate. "Nothing to lose now, is there?"

"Of course not, because you're going to do brilliantly today, Ron." said Hermione, with so much confidence in her voice that I didn't know if she was having me on or if she meant it.

I finished my breakfast and left Harry and Hermione to go and get ready. The sun was shining, but there was a calm breeze that made everything feel hopeful, exciting.

After I got dressed in my keeper gear, Angelina assembled the team to give us a pep talk. As I halfway listened to what she was saying, I began to repeat what Hermione told me were affirmations that she said would help me get into a good mindset for the game.

"I am a great quidditch keeper."

"I am not afraid."

"I will not let the Slytherins stupid song get to me."

"Their mocking does not define me."

"I am a brave Gryffindor who can do anything."

"I will win."

I kept repeating them back and forth and while it didn't completely take the edge off, it did help a little.

We mounted our brooms and took to the sky, along with the Ravenclaw team. Lee Jordan, who had been less than his cheerful self since Fred and George had left, was commentating as usual. As the teams zoomed out onto the pitch he named the players with much less enthusiasm than he normally had.

I flew and took position in the middle of the the center hoop. I looked out into the crowd and seen Harry shoot me a thumbs up and Hermione smile her beautiful smile at me. My spirits lifted a bit.

"And they're off!" said Lee. "And Davies takes the Quaffle immediately, Ravenclaw Captain Davies with the Quaffle, he dodges Johnson, he dodges Bell, he dodges Spinnet as well ... he's going straight for goal! He's going to shoot-and-and- fuck! He's scored."

I couldn't even tell what happened. I had my eyes focused on the chaser's movements, I thought I was ready. How the bloody hell did I let that happen?

The Gryffindors as well as some Hufflepuff groaned. The Slytherins on the other side of the stands began to sing:

"Weasley cannot save a thing

He cannot block a single ring

Weasley is our King,

Weasley is our King,

He didn't let the Quaffle in,

Weasley is our King."

'I will not let the Slytherins stupid song get to me. Their mocking does not define me.' I repeated in my head, trying desperately to block the singing out.

The quaffle was in the air again being passed to a kid named Bradley, who was rushing towards me. came towards me.

'You can do this!' I thought to myself. Bradley looked like he was going to attempt a feint, so I took the chance and his right, and knocked the quaffle out of the way of the hoops.

The entire stadium went silent for about five seconds. Then, Gryffindor roared as Bradley sneered at me, to which I just shrugged.

The game went on and I kept repeating Hermione's affirmations in my head.

'I am a great quidditch keeper. I am not afraid.'

"And once again Weasley managed to save another goal!" yelled Lee Jordan. "Ron Weasley has come to play folks. Guess Ravenclaw underestimated and now Bradley owes me a galleon!"

"Jordan!"

"All in the spirit of fun, Professor."

Suddenly, I heard the song. Only this time, it was coming from the Gryffindors, and it sounded much more different.

"Weasley is our King,

Weasley is our King,

He didn't let the Quaffle in,

Weasley is our King

Weasley can save anything,

He never leaves a single ring,

That's why Gryffindors all sing:

Weasley is our King!"

My heart felt like it was going to leap out of my chest. Gryffindor had changed the song. And now, it was rooting for me.

I almost couldn't take it! And the sour looks on the Slytherins faces was just the icing on the cake!

I saved five more goals and then finally, Ginny caught the snitch right from under Cho Chang's pathetic little nose. The crowd went wild! Angelina and Katie embraced each other and cried happily.

Angelina took the Quidditch Cup from Madam Hooch, kissed it, and then handed it to me as I got to the ground.

"CARRY IT RON! YOU EARNED IT!" she yelled, too happy to do anything else but be loud.

I looked at the shiny, cold, silver cup in my hands. I couldn't believe it. I had done this. I had helped Gryffindor do this.

I was bombarded by Ginny, who practically fell on me and cheered, the snitch still tight in her grasp.

"WE DID IT WE DID IT WE DID IT!" we yelled, hugging each other and jumping up and down.

"Weasley is our King! Weasley is our King!" the Gryffindors chanted. I turned and saw Hermione and Harry heading towards me.

"HARRY! HERMIONE!"I yelled, waving the silver Quidditch cup in the air. "WE DID IT! WE WON!"

They smiled and out of pure impulse, I found myself grabbing Hermione and spinning her around till we were both extremely dizzy. After I put her down and we recovered ourselves, we headed inside the school, laughing and screaming along with everyone else.

I really and truly felt like a King.