Ron Weasley had just finished writing a very ornate letter on his best parchment to his older brother, Percy Weasley. It was not a letter full of crude or curt comments; it was a letter full of adoration. Ron wanted to be just like his older brother. He was now heading his way up to the very pinnacle of the Ministry, and Ron envied him so.

As a child, Ron had always stayed around with Percy. Percy had taken pride in the small child, his younger brother, following him around, and had used his superiority well. He had taught Ron all kinds of things before his Hogwarts Years. He had learned so much from his elder sibling; from how many books Percy read, Ron gained the knowledge and facts that even some Fifth Years didn’t know.

Ron was convinced that the Sorting Hat had gone wrong by putting Percy in Gryffindor. And since Ron had gained so much intelligence in his younger years, Ron had become a Ravenclaw.

After owling the letter, Ron Weasley walked back to the common room. On his way, he ran into Draco Malfoy, a Slytherin that he didn’t get along with very well.

“So you think you're so smart, Weasley, being a Ravenclaw... but that won't help you get more gold anytime soon, now will it?"

Ron ignored him and kept walking; he had always bashed heads with Malfoy, but he didn’t find him worthy enough of being told something back. He had also always been a bit poor; he was sure that any family with seven children would have a few financial problems, but he loved his family dearly and still, Malfoy persisted to harass him about it. Ron always had wanted to make friends with the boy, but he just seemed to care about wealth and pure blood in friends; Ron only had the pleasure of being one of those.

He stepped into the brightly-lit common room, wiping a shade of dust off his blue robes.

He was a Ravenclaw. An unbelievably smart Head Boy of Ravenclaw. He now stood tall, surveying the common room. A sparkling fire sat in the corner of the room, while two first years stood staring at it, in awe of its beauty. Books and stray parchment littered the tables that surrounded the room, allowing eager minds to study after classes and in between lunch breaks. The stairs leading up to the dorms held children, mostly fourth and fifth year girls chatting about their love lives, blocking the stairway and not allowing others to pass to come down for their breakfasts.

Ron stealthily walked over to them, shushing and shooing them out of the way. They stared up at him for a moment and giggled. Ron thought they were going to ignore him, but they moved out of the way after he glared their direction. They didn’t seem to notice that they were just being a bother as they fled the flight of steps.

His girlfriend suddenly descended the stairs, her protuberant, silvery-grey eyes surveying the room blankly until she saw him.

“Hey, Luna,” he told her, slipping one arm around her waist and giving her a slight peck on the cheek.

“Hello, Ronald,” she told him dreamily. He leaned in for another kiss but she waved her wand in front of him.

“No, no,” she told him absent-mindedly. “Crumple Horned Snorkacks are about, Ron.” Ron took in the gentle scent of her shampoo and sighed. She gave him a pout and he gave in, stepping back. She always had these odd fantasies that mythical creatures (that he knew didn’t exist) were everywhere she was, just waiting to bite her or her boyfriend’s heads off, but Ron put up with it because he knew that he loved her. Her calm demeanour and steadfast belief in things made Ron want to be just like her, but he still didn’t believe in some of the odd creatures she insisted were everywhere.

He grabbed a hold of her hand and walked back out of the common room porthole, relieving Luna of her heavy book and squeezing her hand.

They walked together to the Great Hall for breakfast every morning after Ron had inspected the grounds of their schools completely, undertaking his job as Head Boy, then coming back to fulfil his position as a steady boyfriend.

He had five brothers and a younger sister, all of whom had exited Hogwarts except for Ginny, and he, Ron, being the only one to end up in Ravenclaw. The rest of his family had been Gryffindors, and they had taken pride in it in every step (but possibly Fred and George), but Ron had always been the one to come home with all ‘Os’ on his OWLS. He had yet to take on his NEWTs, but they would be upon him in a few weeks. He hoped to graduate with all ‘Os’, and go into occupations in the Ministry with Percy at his side, being a professor himself, or becoming an Auror with his best friend, a Gryffindor named Harry Potter.

Everyone knew Harry. Everyone inside out of Hogwarts knew Harry. He was the Boy Who Lived; the one who had defeated Voldemort when he was just one, when others fifty times his age and below had tried the same and received a different fate; one that involved a shady flash of green light. He was the one who had scraped by with a defeat every time he came into contact with Voldemort; people either envied him, or hated him.

Ron and Luna entered the Great Hall for breakfast when Hermione Granger poked her head in. Ron could have sworn he heard a “Jerk,” muttered from under the girl’s breath as she walked by, books in the crook of her arm, but he just inhaled deeply and kept walking, squeezing Luna’s hand reassuringly as she glanced her way. Hermione walked to the middle of an empty table in the Great Hall and sat down; she looked as if she had something smelly stuck under her nose.

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were always butting heads. When they had dated briefly in their fifth year, all had seemed fine and perfect, but when an unexpected break up turned Hermione bitter, feuds started and anger rose bit by bit every day. Now, the two only spoke to each other when Hermione would mutter a rude comment to him. Ron didn’t necessarily dislike the girl; he really had no reason to. But, she had nearly the same grades as he, and he was a Ravenclaw, and she a Gryffindor. She detested him for the back-then break up, and had never seemed to have gotten over it.

Ron didn’t even have to try and get good grades; they just came natural to him. He didn’t have to work as hard as Hermione, who studied night and day for the grades she made. He was a Ravenclaw after all. He always did his homework, and he never asked for help, except for the occasional aid from Luna. But Hermione had to study and study hard she did. Hermione’s revulsion had turned to something worse than hate when she had found he had gotten all ‘Os’ when she had gotten all ‘Os’ except for one ‘E’. She tried so hard, yet he always was the victor.

Just thinking on it, if Ron had been in Gryffindor or any other house, then he probably would had to have had Hermione help him his homework all the time. He shuddered at the very horrid thought.

As the smiling couple sat down at the table with stares of abhorrence etched in the lines of Hermione, Ron just whispered for Luna to ignore it.

Harry Potter hated how his two friends carried on for something as silly as a break up, because he knew he could never be on a double date with his friend. That’s what friends were supposed to do, but it never happened.

Hermione gave him a diabolical stare as she looked up every few moments from her book to glance at him, now giving Luna a kiss over their kippers and eggs.

Hermione leapt from her seat and walked past them. Ron, for a split second, thought she was going to slap him, but she kept walking, and he leaned into Luna’s kiss more.

After their breakfast, Luna and Ron went to class, where Ron caught two fourth year ‘Fred and Georges’ sneakily trying to sell some exploding chewing gum to some first years. He, with his brilliant power, took the items away and scolded the two.

They walked into class cheerily, smiles on their faces as they sat down in their seats at the elongated tables in the middle of the room. Luna took a quiet seat next to him and glanced around the room at the few other students who were still in the class. Defence Against the Dark Arts was a challenging course; a new and even more challenging teacher awaited them, once again, for the year. His name was Andrew Warman, and neither Ron nor any of his friends had ever heard of him before. They had heard something about how he had been a friend to Dumbledore in his younger years, and he had been asked to come and teach for a year or so. Ron, seeing that Professor Warman was a very pleasant man and actually wanted to help the students, hoped that he neither died nor got stuffed in a trunk by the end of the year.

Hermione slinked in a few minutes before Warman closed the door shut, clasping her treasured books to her chest and sat down near the back of the room.

“All right, class. I’m going to go easy on you today.” He rolled his wand between two fingers, staring at the class intently before speaking.

“I have a certain dark creature in a crate over there.” He gestured towards the back of the room where Hermione sat, and she faintly scooted her chair away from the shaking box.

“The creature seeks actively out to harm others. This is what makes it a darkcreature.” Professor Warman sometimes had an odd way of addressing the class; as if they were children, but he trudged on.

“The creature in that box is an invisible creature that is usually peaceful; only when it’s not angered by some foreign being. Its hair can be woven into Invisibility Cloaks.” He paused for a moment, searching the faces of the children around the room. “Does anyone know what it is?”

Ron and Hermione’s hands both went in the air at approximately the same time.

The Professor directed his attention toward the young man.

“Weasley.”

“It’s a Demiguise, sir.”

“Correct.” He pointed his wand at the box and it immediately ceased in movement. “Ten points to Ravenclaw.”

Ron’s face lit up and Luna gave him an evil, but sly grin. He and Luna had actually just been discussing those creatures this past week.

Hermione sunk into her chair, glaring an evil glare at Ronald Weasley.

~ * ~

A grunt awoke the sleeping figure next to Ron, and he rolled over, trying to make sleep come back to him.

“Ron, shut up!” he yelled ferociously.

“No . . . no, I don’t want to . . . Luna . . .”

Harry Potter threw a pillow at his friend, and that woke Ron up, making him sit upright lazily on the bed with eyes half closed. He licked his lips.

“What happened?” Ron asked, surveyed his surroundings cautiously. He tucked the red wisps of hair behind his ears that were splayed across his forehead.

“You were having a bad dream or something,” said Seamus sleepily. He had been the one to yell at Ron first.

“What were you dreaming about, Ron?” Dean asked, now fully awake.

“Oh, Merlin, I went out with Loony.” Ron groaned and then lay back on his pillow. “And then I got a question right . . .” He pulled the sheets up to his head. “And Hermione hated me and . . .” He left the sentence to hang in the air, trying to doze off again. He took in a deep sigh and immediately fell back asleep. The sound of his snores hit the other boys in the common room.

“What’d he say?” whispered Seamus to Harry.

“I . . . I think he just said he went out with Luna Lovegood in his dream.”

The three boys sat in silence for a moment with full grins on their faces, then all burst into fits of laughter.