This may be short. Its mainly Ron and Hermione's apparition test and conversations. It isn't important to the story, but it's important to Romione, and has to be shared lol.
Chapter 179: Apparition
The following weekend, I joined Hermione and the rest of the sixth years who would turn seventeen in time to take the test in a fortnight. Harry talked on how he woodshed he was going, but he had decided to use the time to attempt another assault on the Room of Requirement.
"You'd do better," said Hermione, when he told us this plan I'm the entrance hall, "to go straight to Slughorn's office and try and get that memory from him."
"I've been trying!" said Harry crossly. "He doesn't want to talk to me, Hermione! He can tell I've been trying to get him on his own again, and he's not going to let it happen!"
"Well, you've just gotta keep at it, haven't you?"
The short queue of people waiting to file past Filch, who was doing his usual prodding act with the Secrecy Sensor, moved forward a few steps and Harry did not answer in case he was overheard by the caretaker. He wished us both luck, then turned and climbed the marble staircase.
As much as I would have loved it if Harry was able to come with us, I liked having this extra time with Hermione alone. It was getting harder with Lavender begging for my time. Lavender wasn't old enough to go.
"Are you nervous?" I asked Hermione as we walked down the path to the village.
"Of course I am, what kind of question is that?" said Hermione.
"I don't see why. You'll do brilliantly, you know that. I'm the one that will probably lose a limb or some shit."
"Language, and no you won't. You just have to concentrate. Think about exactly where you want to be, or what you want to get away from." suggested Hermione.
"Hmmm...what I want to get away from...does that mean if I envision getting far away from Lavender, I'll be able to apparate?" I said, smirking.
Hermione looked like she tried to hold back her chuckle, but a little of it came out. "Ron, why don't you just tell her that you want to just be friends?"
"Tried that yesterday." I said shaking my head. "She started doing her crying fit, and I felt bad."
"Well, you are just prolonging the inevitable and causing her more pain." said Hermione.
"I shouldn't have gotten with her anyways," I admitted. "It was for all the wrong reasons."
"And what were those?" Hermione asked.
I really didn't want to answer her. If I told her the real reason I allowed this doomed fiasco to go on, she would probably hate me.
However, I felt I needed to be honest with her. Just not at that moment.
"Tell you what," I said, "you tell me what you smelled last in the Amortentia, and I'll tell you why I dated Lavender."
Hermione stopped walking. I looked over at her and watched her facial expressions of her mulling what I said over.
"Fine. I will." she said. "Just not today. Not right now."
"I can wait." I said.
We went to the old Zonkos, where the Ministry was using the building for the test. When we got there, we joined Dean, Parvati, Seamus and the rest of the eligible sixth years in the somewhat cramped quarters of the store.
Old Twycross was there, looking as if he was ready to take things serious now.
"Right. Now, you will wait in the waiting area we have set up in the other room. Your name will be called, your test will be given, and you will be either be told the time in which you can come back and try for your license, or told to reschedule another practice test. Now, everyone but Hannah Abbott please leave the room.
As we there waiting for our names to be called, I quickly realized that not only were people leaving the room and not returning, but that it didn't take long for the next person to go. Ten minutes had passed, and it was already Hermione's turn.
I gave her a thumbs up and she gave me a nervous smile as she went into the other room. In a matter of fifteen minutes, only Blaise Zabini and I were left in the room.
When my name was called, I immediately forgot everything I had learned. I walked into the room and faced Twycross and another wizard by whom I didn't know his name.
"Ronald Weasley?" he said. I nodded, scared that my words would come out in gibberish.
"Of course, of course, I should have known by the hair." said Twycross in a cheerful voice. "I know your dad, great man he is. I've also tested a few of your brothers."
I laughed nervously at that.
"Well, let's not keep you waiting with my ramblings. The test is pretty simple. All you need to do is stand in that ring-"
He pointed to the ring in the middle of the floor. I walked over and stepped into it, taking a big gulp of air.
"Good, good. Now, your destination today, Mr. Weasley, is going to be Madam Puddifoots' Tea Shop. You are familiar with it, of course."
I nodded again.
"A man of little words I see. Now, I will be apparating there now, waiting for you. You have a time limit of a minute and a half to do it. And, go!"
And with that, he popped it of sight, leaving the other wizard glaring at me through his spectacles.
I stood there and closed my eyes. I concentrated hard on the 3Ds that we had learned about. I visualized Madam Puddifoots' and locked it into my mind. I took a deep breath, and turned.
It felt as if my insides were being sucked in through a vacuum. That feeling lasted about a second, then changed to a feeling of being spit out of a hole. I had landed on my feet, but when I looked up, I was in front of Scrivenshafts instead.
I groaned and kicked over a nearby rock. A few seconds later, Twycross appeared in front of me.
"Very good, Mr. Weasley." he said, holding out his hand. "While you didn't make it to the desired destination, you did make it close enough, and from the looks of it, all of you made it. Study hard for your test, eh?"
I was ecstatic. "Yes sir!" I said happily, shaking the poor wizard's hand a bit too hard.
"So, how d'ya do?" Harry asked Hermione and I at lunch.
"I did it-well, kind of!" I told him enthusiastically. "I was supposed to be Apparating to outside Madam Puddifoots' Tea Shop and I overshot it a bit, ended up near Scrivenshafts, but at least I moved!"
"Good one," said Harry. "How'd you do, Hermione?"
"Oh, she was perfect, obviously," I said, before Hermione could answer. "Perfect deliberation, divination, and desperation or whatever the hell it is. We all went for a quick drink in the Three Broomsticks after and you should've heard Twycross going on about her. I'll be surprised if he doesn't pop the question soon."
"And what about you?" asked Hermione, ignoring me. "Have you been up at the Room of Requirement all this time?"
"Yep," said Harry. "And guess who I ran into up there? Tonks!"
"Tonks?" repeated Hermione and I together, surprised.
"Yeah, she said she'd come to visit Dumbledore."
And Harry wen in about how he and Tonks conversed about the killings and disappearances, and about how she seemed gloomy and on edge, very not Tonks like.
"If you ask me, she's cracking up a bit. Losing her nerve after what happened at the Ministry." I said.
"It's a bit odd," said Hermione, who for some reason looked very concerned. "She's supposed to be guarding the school, why she suddenly abandoning her post to come and see Dumbledore when he's not even here?"
"I had a thought," said Harry. "You don't think she can have been... you know... in love with Sirius?"
Hermione and I stared at him.
"What on earth makes you say that?"
"I dunno," said Harry, shrugging, "but she was nearly crying when I mentioned his name, and her Patronus is a big four-legged thing now. I wondered whether it hadn't become... you know... him."
"It's a thought," said Hermione slowly. "But I still don't know why she'd be bursting into the castle to see Dumbledore, if that's really why she was here."
"Goes back to what I said, doesn't it?" I said as I shoveled mashed potato into my mouth. "She's gone a bit funny. Lost her nerve. Women. They're easily upset."
"And yet," said Hermione, glaring at me, "I doubt you'd find a woman who sulked for half an hour because Madam Rosmerta didn't laugh at their joke about the hag, the Healer, and the Mimbulus mimbletonia."
I scowled at her.
"You said you wouldn't bring that up!