Autumn 1991

Ronald Weasley

The great hall rumbled with voices and the Slytherin table seemed to gleam beneath the thousands of flickering candles. Ron frowned as he entered, he had almost been late once again, the table already overflowing with plates and bowls of food. He sat beside Blaise as he usually did and gave his friend a small sorry smile for almost having missed dinner. Blaise flashed him a concerned look in return but didn't bother to say anything, sending a rush of guilt through Ron's chest.

He let out a slightly uncomfortable breath and inspected the food in front of him, his stomach grumbling fiercely as he did so. There was a large bowl of stew that seemed to be so hot it still simmered on the table and a towering pile of roasted lamb which had been lathered in some sort of sweetly smelling sauce. He grabbed a serving of each, being careful not to spill anything and burn himself and then also took the liberty to reach in front of Blaise and take a jacketed potato.

"Hungry?" Theo asked him whilst cutting his own piece of lamb.

Ron gave him a short nod, not yet sure what Theo was possibly hinting at.

"Well, I certainly would be," Theo said softly. "I get hungry enough when I sleep through the night, you must be starving."

Ron felt his cheeks grow warm. "What do you mean?"

"The dark spots under your eyes," Theo pointed with the tip of his knife. "I mean, those don't just appear. Unless of course, that's why you're in Slytherin. The hat took one look at you and said 'Oh, this lad's got some serious skin issues, seems evil enough' and threw you in with us."

Tracey giggled beside him. "Plan on being evil, Nott?"

Theo pressed the tip of his knife into the lamb and shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't want to disappoint the heiress."

Daphne glared at him. "You're already a disappointment."

"So you would say, but yet here I am." he said with a shrug.

Blaise sighed and turned slightly so he faced more towards Ron. "You're still having nightmares?" he asked.

Ron gave him an awkward smile. He didn't want his friends to be concerned about him, for a great number of reasons. Mostly because he was afraid they would start to ask too many questions about why he was having nightmares and he found it difficult to explain without either sounding entirely crazy or revealing his secret. Which meant, he had to tell more lies and he already felt guilty enough.

"Sometimes," he answered sheepishly. Instead of meeting Blaise's eyes he looked back down to his plate and took a spoonful of stew.

"You're still having nightmares?" He heard Daphne ask beside him. "Are you afraid of something?"

"No," he said swiftly, catching the smirk starting on Theo's face. "They're not about anything in particular."

"I think that's called night terrors," Tracey provided. "Or at least that's what the muggles call them."

Theo froze up a little beside her. "How do you know that?"

"My mother is a muggle-born," Tracey answered. Ron was sure that he saw Theo flinch slightly.

"Well," he decided to interrupt. "I'm not sure what they are. But they're always different, and I'm working on it."

"Are you?" Blaise asked. "It's been a few weeks and you still have trouble sleeping."

"He needs a potion," Daphne concurred.

Ron shook his head. The last thing he needed was one of the professors taking an interest in him. Although he would admit that potions would probably do a great amount to ease him, he thought that it wasn't worth the risk of someone finding out about his dream and uncovering that it wasn't really a dream but some sort of weird vision.

"Well," Theo said smoothly, "maybe we could have brewed Weasley here just the thing he needed if someone hadn't poached my partner."

Daphne gave him another narrow stare. "Do you know how to brew a potion of dreamless sleep?" It seemed to be a serious question.

"Not yet," Theo shrugged. "But who knows where I would be in my illustrious potions career if it hadn't been derailed by meddling blonde thieves."

"Nott," Blaise said, meeting Theo's gaze.

Theo took the warning in good spirits. "Of course, maybe I would still be where I am today. I guess we wouldn't know." He glanced at Tracey. "Well, at least my new partner isn't entirely helpless."

She gave him a slight smile. "You should be thankful that I'm not evil."

"Speaking of evil," Theo drawled. "Where exactly have you been disappearing to, Weasley? I couldn't find you today, and then you were almost late."

Ron felt his heart stop in his chest, he felt as if someone had frozen him inside of a block of ice. "I don't know what you mean," he lied.

Blaise frowned beside him. "He means that you spend a lot of time away from Slytherin."

"Homework," Ron answered with a shrug.

Theo laughed. "Nice try, but I did check the library."

Ron was suddenly aware of all four sets of eyes set on him. He took a piece of lamb and swallowed it dryly. He hoped that the conversation would go elsewhere but knew that it wouldn't.

"My brother," he lied again. "Percy, he's a Gryffindor prefect and he's probably one of the best students here. We spend time together and he helps me with my homework. We use abandoned classrooms so my other brothers, the twins, don't find out. They don't like that I'm a Slytherin."

He noticed Daphne narrow her eyes at him.

"Works for me," Theo shrugged.

Blaise cast Ron a doubtful look and returned to his meal. Ron felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. The guilt was ravaging him.I'm sorry.

"That's a lie," Daphne said plainly. Ron's eyes widened and he turned to face her. "I don't know why, but you're a terrible liar."

"Such accusations," Theo jokingly scolded. "You wouldn't accuse our golden boy of lying, would you?"

"Whatever it is," she said sternly. "I will find out, so there isn't much use in hiding it for much longer."

Ron could feel himself sweating. His stomach no longer rumbled, and his appetite had abandoned him.

Ron forced himself to smile, but he wasn't sure if it was convincing. "Do you think I've joined some sort of dark magic club, or something?"

Theo grinned. "Oh, that's a good idea, Weasley. We should start a dark magic club. I'd imagine there's a thing or two you know. I mean, that's just another of the many reasons the hat gave you to us, isn't it?"

"Right," Ron mumbled.

"Honestly though, give Weasley a break," Theo said to Daphne. "He's obviously disturbed somewhat, can't even sleep properly. He won't sleep better with you breathing down his neck, and then I have to listen to him whining all night long."

Ron couldn't tell if Theo was making fun of him or genuinely trying to be useful.

"I'm not breathing down his neck," Daphne rolled her eyes. "I'm just telling him that he doesn't have to hide whatever it is he is doing. Obviously, he isn't performing dark magic."

Just the disarming charm.

"You would tell us if you were though, wouldn't you?" Tracey asked him. "It sounds exciting."

He nodded, just happy that the conversation had begun to swing away from his secrets. After all, he remembered clearly what Sal had told him. He wasn't ready to share it with anybody yet.

Theo scoffed. "Yeah, right. Weasley would hoard all the good spells for himself. Can't trust blood-traitors."Arsehole.

It was Tracey's time to glare at him. "You do know I'm a half-blood, don't you?"

Theo mumbled something that Ron couldn't hear and looked back down at his plate. A second later he tilted it back up again, his eyes wide.

"I know what to do," Theo said suddenly. "It's a perfect plan."

"Do I even want to ask?" Blaise said.

"Yes, you really do." Theo smiled at him. "I know how we can get revenge on Malfoy. I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier. Obviously we all agreed it can't be something he can recover from, right?" Nobody nodded or shook their heads. "Well, what if we embarrass him here? During dinner, we can spike his food or his drink. A potion maybe, something devilish. The entire school will see, not like the thing I did with his shower. That was far too private. He will know he's being watched, and there is a certain sense of deniability if we do it here. It could be Weasley's brothers, or anyone else."

Blaise frowned. "You want to poison another Slytherin with all of the professors a few metres away?"

Daphne shook her head, disappointedly. "I did have some hope for you, Nott."

Ron leaned closer to the table. "Breakfast," he said softly. "There are fewer professors here at breakfast."

Theo nodded at him. "Great idea, Weasley. Breakfast it is. There won't be as many professors so we won't get caught as easily. We just need some kind of distraction so that Draco and everyone else are looking away."

Daphne frowned. "You're going to get us expelled, or worse Crabbe and Goyle will kick your teeth in while I'm forced to watch."

Theo waved his hand at her. "You do the distraction then, I'll do the poisoning. If I get caught, I'll say that I went at it alone. I think I'll use a potion to turn his hair a different colour, permanently if I can manage. Imagine that, chick, a Malfoy without platinum hair."

Ron couldn't help but feel somewhat conflicted about the idea. He wanted to end things with Malfoy and he knew that something had to be done sooner rather than later, yet he knew that the public embarrassment would be terrible. He wasn't sure if it was something he should have been happy about, after all, he would have been mortified if someone did the same thing to him. Ron picked up his goblet and swallowed the entire glass of pumpkin juice. He noticed Blaise gave him a questioning glance, which he returned in kind.

"I'm not so sure," he decided to say, his voice hesitant. "What if he freaks out?"

Theo scrunched his nose and laughed. "I hope he does, that's kind of the point, Weasley. I hope he freaks out so hard that he can never recover his standing."

Daphne nodded. "Weasley has a point, what if this blows up in your face?"

"I'll take responsibility," Theo rolled his eyes. "Can you two stop trying to drown out my ideas? I get it, you're jealous you didn't come up with it, but that doesn't make it a bad plan. We just need a good idea for a distraction."

"The mail comes at breakfast," Tracey said. Theo looked at her and his eyes widened.

"That's brilliant! We can have the owls deliver loads of parcels. That has to confuse everyone."

"What about smoke bombs?" she added. "I have some from Zonko's"

Theo's eyes seemed to glow, "That would be amazing."

Daphne shook her head again, her mouth tightening. "This is reckless, Nott. If this goes wrong, you'll be in a lot of trouble. Even your father wouldn't be able to save you. And where are you going to get the potion? If you steal from Snape he's going to notice."

"But he won't know that I did it," Theo defended. "It doesn't matter if he knows it's missing if he can't prove that I took it."

"Your funeral," Blaise said lightly. "I'm not helping with this."

Ron met Blaise's gaze. He felt guilt swell inside of him once again. He hated lying to him, and he definitely didn't want to do anything else that might ruin his friendship. He had his own doubts about Theo's plan and although that alone wasn't enough for him to back out, both Blaise's and Daphne's reluctance was. As much as he didn't like Malfoy, he wasn't sure that public embarrassment would make things better. Theo had tried to scare him once before, and that had only made things worse. If he failed a second time, Ron had to stop himself from shivering, he was sure he would end up in a fistfight. He caught a glimpse of Percy across the room and took a short breath.

"I'm out too," he said. "It's going to be too much."

Daphne offered him an approving nod and Blaise smiled slightly.

Theo just rolled his eyes. "That's alright, I think my potion partner and I can cover this."

"Only if I get to help you with the smoke," Tracey agreed.