Hermione walked into the kitchen a minute after Ron, whose face was still red, and took the only seat opposite him.
“Okay, they’re here,” George said, looking eagerly at his mum.
“Now tell us what this Order thing is,” Fred demanded.
Lupin let out a sigh and looked around at Mrs. Weasley and Sirius, both of who nodded. He put his fork down from his plate of goulash and started.
“Basically,” Lupin said, “the Order of the Phoenix-”
But the kitchen doors banged open suddenly and Dumbledore strode into the room, wearing crimson robes with gold stars decorating it. His silver beard flowed magnificently as he walked to the table, smiling at everyone.
“My deepest apologies,” Dumbledore said quietly, sitting down, as Mrs. Weasley got up to get him some food. “No, no, Molly, I just had a big lunch, that’s why I’m late,” he smiled. Mrs. Weasley sat back down.
Dumbledore looked around at Sirius and Lupin. “I suppose you were just telling them about the Order?”
“Yes, yes we were,” Lupin stammered, taken by surprise, along with Sirius.
“Ah,” Dumbledore breathed, looking around at the curious younger faces. He smiled gently at them all, like a grandfather would to his grandchildren.
“Well, in short, the Order of the Phoenix is a secret society against Lord Voldemort,” he said quietly as everybody around the table except Sirius and Lupin winced.
“Who are the members?” Ron asked, forgetting his anger at Hermione.
Mrs. Weasley was the one to answer this question. “Dumbledore, of course, your father and I, Bill, Charlie, Sirius, Remus, and many more that you will be meeting soon.”
“What about us?” Fred piped.
“Yes, we want to be part of this as well!” George chimed in, slamming his goblet down on the table.
“You will not,” Mrs. Weasley snarled through thin lips. “You are much too young!”
“We’re adults!” Fred objected.
“We can if we want!” George said.
“Absolutely not! You still have a year of school ahead of you!”
“So? We can help by-”
“No is my final answer! We’ll see what your father has to say about this when he comes tonight!”
The twins grew into an angry silence at this statement and Ron thought it safe to continue questioning.
“So what do you do?”
Dumbledore spoke up again. “Generally we try to decipher what Voldemort's”- once again, everybody but Sirius and Lupin winced- “next move is.”
“What do you know so far?” Hermione asked.
“Well,” Lupin answered, “We think that he is trying to round up the dementors. To get them on his side. It’s only a matter of time before he gets all of them and all his Death Eaters break out of Azkaban.”
Hermione and Ginny gasped, while Fred, George, and Ron’s eyes grew wide.
“That’s terrible!” Ginny exclaimed, the rest nodding.
“There’s nothing we can do about that,” Mrs. Weasley commented.
A small silence drew over the kitchen until Ron looked at Dumbledore again.
“Does Harry know about this?”
He looked at Hermione, who was suddenly glaring at him, and he didn’t know why until he remembered that he told her that he didn’t want to talk about Harry, and there he was asking questions about him. He felt a sudden pit in the bottom of his stomach that grew with every second she glared at him.
Dumbledore shook his head sadly.
“But I must warn you five,” he said in a low, serious voice, looking at each of them individually before speaking, his gaze lingering longest on Ron and Hermione. “You must swear to me that you will not tell him anything about the Order, where you are, or what is going on, not only in here, but outside. However much you want to, you must not write to Harry and say anything until he arrives.”
“Why?” Ginny asked.
“Just in case the post gets intercepted. You may, of course, send him mail, but absolutely not containing anything more than a few lines. You can not divulge any information of Headquarters or what is happening. Do you understand?”
Hermione and Ron looked questioningly at each other, and Ron savored the fact that she wasn’t glowering at him any more. George, Fred, and Ginny were nodding already.
Ron and Hermione were in the spotlight.
“It’ll be hard,” Dumbledore said gently, “but it’s something you must do.”
Ron looked at Hermione but she had chosen to ignore him. Hurt, Ron nodded and Hermione did, too.
*
Ron went to bed that night after a full meal of chicken stir-fry; his thoughts still on Hermione. She had actually said goodnight to him before walking into her room with Ginny and gave him a half smile, which he returned, feeling boiling pleasure in his heart.
He opened his trunk, dressed into his pajamas, and climbed into bed.
What a stressful day. At least Hermione isn’t mad anymore. But she’s right, Harry’s going to be livid when he finds out that we’re here together without him.
But Ron, whose eyes were now closed, couldn’t help but feel happy, though guilty, that even though he thought Harry had everything, Ron had finally received the better end of the deal. Plus, he would be able to spend as much time with Hermione as he wanted, even if it meant Ginny tagging along.
Ron thought more into it as he drifted off, and before he knew it, he was having a very strange dream in which Harry was having a raging fit, like a childish tantrum, kicking and screaming on the kitchen floor, and Fred and George were off in the corner of the kitchen selling tickets to random members of the Order to watch the show. Hermione was the only sane person in the house besides himself, and as she approached him among the chaos he got ready to kiss her. He was just two inches from her lips when all of a sudden she turned into Snape and bellowed, “One hundred points from Gryfinndor!”
Ron’s eyes shot open in the dark.
That was definitely one of the worst nightmares I’ve ever had. I’ll never be able to look at Snape in the same way again.
Ron put his face in his hands, still lying down, when he suddenly heard a loud thump by the other bed, making his eyes go wide in his hands. He had much experience with random thumps in the darkness from the ghoul in the attic above his bedroom at the Burrow, but he hadn’t thought that there was anything living in his room now.
Almost frozen with fear, he slowly pulled his hands off his face, and even more slowly, turned his face to the source of the noise, but was relieved to have found nothing. He expected it was just Pig thrashing around, but the minute owl was fast asleep, hooting quietly.
Shrugging it off, and knowing he wouldn’t have been able to see anything anyway since the entire room was black except for a thin patch of moonlight coming through the window and onto the floor, he rolled over onto his side.
What Ron didn’t expect was to see the outline of a short figure peering at him with big, wide eyes.
“AAARGH!!!”
Ron jumped and was immediately sorry for doing that as his head hit the metal headboard behind him with such force that he saw sparkling white dots in his eyes.
He was rubbing his eyes when he heard footsteps coming up to his door.
“What’s wrong?” Hermione said quickly, her night gown and robe flowing as she opened the door and put on the light. She looked with squinting eyes around at Ron, who was staring down at the thing that scared him with an appalled look on his face, and then looked at it herself.
“Oh!” she shrieked, but then regretting it completely, she realized what it was.
The leathery, big-eared, ugly creature was Sirius’ house-elf. He had wide, cruel eyes, and was now looking between Ron and Hermione with disgust.
“H-hello,” Hermione said kindly, first rubbing her eyes out of sleepiness then walking over to the elf, which backed away.
“Kreacher is not used to this Mudblood… who does she think she is, walking up to Kreacher like she knows him…” he mumbled to himself, glaring at Hermione, who stopped dead in her tracks.
“Watch what you’re saying!” Ron snarled at the elf, jumping out of his bed and nearly knocking the elf over. He was still rubbing his head and he knew that there would be a huge lump on it by the next morning.
“Ron! It’s okay!” Hermione said indignantly, grabbing his arm and stopping him from doing any damage to Kreacher.
“What Kreacher’s dear mistress would say if she could see what scum was brought into the house…” the elf muttered menacingly to himself.
“Out!” Ron shouted, threatening to kick Kreacher out of his room by raising his leg. Kreacher eyed him reproachfully, but said nothing as he edged out of the room through the doorway and into the dark hallway.
“Ron!” Hermione snapped at him as he looked at her.
“He insulted you! What was I supposed to do?”
“Sirius was telling me about him at dinner tonight, he said that he wasn’t right in the head!”
“Like any normal house-elf would just go around and start calling people that? I don’t think so!”
“That doesn’t mean you have to go and raise your foot and all that!”
“You’re just defending him because you’re still caught up in that stupid spew thing!”
“For your information, Ronald, it’s S.P.E.W. and NO I’m not defending him because of that, I’m defending him because he doesn’t know what he’s saying!”
There was a second in which they glared at eachother fiercely, then Ron went up very close to her and opened his mouth.
“Hermione, I am never going to let anybody hurt you and let them get away with it, you should know that by now!” Ron whispered sharply before he even had time to register what he was going to say. He didn’t even realize what he said until he said it, and by that time Hermione had gone quite red.
“I know,” she said quietly, making Ron’s ears even more crimson than they just got.
There was now an uneasy silence between them.
“Er, I’m just going back to, um, bed,” Hermione stammered, pointing to the door. She almost stumbled over Ron’s suitcase but caught herself before she did. She came back up looking even redder.
Ron had not seemed to notice.
“Yeah- yeah, goodnight,” he said, still frozen with embarrassment.
Hermione left the room without another word, and Ron, turning the light off and climbing into bed again five minutes later, never thought he had ever felt so stupid in all his life.