Unfortunately, the next morning Ron’s mood was no better, nor was it the morning after or the morning after that. The Gryffindor Keeper was constantly sullen and hardly spoke a word to anyone, even Harry. Despite his mammoth efforts, Ron hardly spoke more than a sentence in the first three days of November. Draco’s behaviour was only adding to the aggravated silence that had weaved its way around the four friends. “Judging by the things she did with her tongue, I’d say she’s been about a bit. The Muggles have some name for it, what is it? Oh yeah, tart,” he sneered to Blaise Zabini, who was sitting next to him in their usual place; the furthest back row of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Harry wasn’t really sure why he was sneering like that; he had a black eye from one of the solid punches that Ron had managed to land before he was stunned.
“I thought that was a type of cake?” Zabini replied stupidly.
“Exactly! It’s enjoyed by EVERYONE!” Draco cackled.
“I very much doubt that anyone would enjoy kissing you, Mr. Malfoy. Certainly, from what I’ve heard, you taste decidedly like ashes,” Ellie taunted from the other side of the room where she was helping Ernie MacMillan with a Smoke Spell; the wand movement was particularly intricate. “I’m taking ten points from Slytherin for your discussion of matters unrelated to the class, and a further ten for calling another student such an offensive name. If I hear you talking like that again, whether it be in my class or any other, you shall find yourself in detention for a week.”
“I’m surprised that you’re sticking up for her, I mean, you are a Weasley now,” Draco drawled.
“How observant of you. I may be a Weasley, Mr. Malfoy, but first and foremost I am a woman.” Ellie strode across the classroom and leaned over Malfoy’s desk menacingly. “And it is as a woman that I understand Ms. Granger’s predicament. The male of the species has been deceiving us since the dawn of time, and since I doubt that is likely to change in the near future, I would appreciate it if you would get back to your Smoke Spell and cease the idle insinuations.” Ellie smiled at Hermione in a kindly way on her way back to the front of the room. Thankfully Draco remained quiet for the rest of that lesson, but he piped up again once he was within the safe confines of the Potions dungeon.
“What’s the matter, Weaselbee? How come you’re not sticking up for your little Mudblood wench? You’ve not fallen out with her, have you? Maybe you’ve seen the light and realized that she’s just a wretched little whore who’ll get off with anything in trousers?” Malfoy’s howling laughter resounded around the cold, damp walls.
“That’s enough, Malfoy! Who the hell do you think you are? Don’t you dare talk about her like that!” Harry lunged across the table at the Slytherin but found himself being held back by Dean and Justin Finch-Fletchley, who was the sole Hufflepuff in the N.E.W.T Potions class. Ron just sat at the desk next to him apparently engrossed in the textbook.
“What is going on here?” Snape’s cold voice echoed through the dimly lit room. He was standing just by the doorway with an unfathomable look on his face. No wonder really, Draco was attempting to crouch behind his desk, while Harry was halfway across the top of his with Dean’s arm slung tightly around his neck and Justin attempting to get a better grip of his torso.
“Potter was trying to attack me, sir.” Draco had returned to his smug self in the presence of his head of house.
“And why was that?” Quite surprisingly Snape was giving Draco a very accusatory look.
“Because he hates me?” The teacher’s stare wrong-footed Malfoy and he wasn’t quite sure that things were going his way.
“Really. Would you care to explain yourself, Mr. Potter?” Snape looked at him and Harry saw that for the first time ever, he was actually interested in the answer.
“He was saying disgusting things about Hermione…sir,” Harry remembered his manners at the last minute. If Snape was going to be civil to him then he should at least try and be civil back.
“I see, and is Ms. Granger so incapable of defending herself that she requires you to leap across desks and resort to violence for her?” Harry couldn’t tell if Snape was playing with him or being serious.
“I…well…I suppose not, sir,” Harry admitted.
“Very well. Ten points from Gryffindor for your aggressive display and ten points from Slytherin for letting your mouth run away with you again,” Snape said rounding on Draco once more. “I believe that Professor Weasley has already docked points from you today for you inability to keep your mouth closed, and I am also informed that she threatened you with a week of detention if you didn’t keep your thoughts to yourself, am I right?”
“Yes, sir,” Draco replied sulkily.
“That being the case, I would suggest you see her at dinner to arrange your first punishment!” Snape snapped. From that moment on a surprisingly good Potions lesson ensued.
Ginny’s success with Hermione wasn’t any better than the luck Harry was having with Ron, and it was hampered by the fact that the two girls were in different year groups. While Harry and Ron were forced together for practically every waking minute, Hermione found it quite easy to escape Ginny by disappearing off to class or having some Head Girl duty to perform. Hermione was equally as downtrodden as Ron, the time apart was having a terrible effect on the pair of them and the third parties that came in to contact with them. Harry and Ginny’s newly re-instated relationship suffered the most because they felt horribly guilty about being a couple while their two best friends were on the verge of being torn apart forever. They didn’t kiss in front of Ron or Hermione and tried to hide the fact that they were holding hands whenever they were around them. The situation was particularly hard on Ginny, while she was Hermione’s best friend and understood that the seventh year had been very indecently duped, she was also Ron’s little sister and could empathize with his anger. Harry felt very much the same, Hermione had made a mistake that was very easy to make when everyone was disguised, but at the same time, kissing Malfoy was still…well…kissing Malfoy.
On the upside of things, the Quidditch team had reconciled their differences and things were now back on track for them. Their practices in the run up to the most eagerly anticipated match of the season were as good as any that they had ever had. Ron’s new quiet approach seemed to agree with the team, Harry actually overheard Colin telling his brother that he wished Ron would shout at someone, at least then they’d know that he was still alive and kicking. Harry smiled to himself; Colin really was very perceptive. The Quidditch pitch had always been somewhat of a haven to Harry and now, more than ever, it served its purpose wonderfully. When he soared into the air high above the stands he felt free of everything that threatened to suffocate him on the ground.
Ron and Hermione was just a tiny portion of everything that he had to endure, Professor McGonagall’s warning that N.E.W.T didn’t stand for Nastily Exhausting Wizard Tests for nothing was, in Harry’s opinion, the biggest understatement of the century. Even Ellie, who had always been the most forgiving of their teachers, was cracking down on them. This week alone she had issued several pieces of homework that when combined amounted to almost ten feet of parchment, and that was one of the lighter subjects. McGonagall’s essays on Animagi were almost as painful as the act of transformation, despite his initial enthusiasm for the craft; Harry was becoming increasingly weary of the attention to detail that was required to carry out the transformation. Potions was as mind boggling as ever, and with the distance that Hermione was setting herself at, he had no hope of getting her help on it.
On top of that Harry was still running the DA, the students didn’t need as much guidance anymore but he still had to research spells for them to try out, another task that was increasingly difficult without Hermione’s help. Just to put the icing on the cake that was Harry’s life, Professor Dumbledore was calling him in at random intervals to test his Occlumency. As of late the headmaster had been able to get access to his mind, even if it was only momentarily.
“Is something wrong, Harry?” Dumbledore had asked after he was able to break in to Harry’s mind for the fifth time in a row.
“I’ve just been a bit stressed this week; a lot’s been going on.” Harry waved his hand almost in an attempt to brush his strains away.
“Of course, I heard about the situation between Ronald and Hermione, I take it things are no better?”
“No change, they just keep avoiding each other.”
“It is very difficult to be in the middle when your loyalty to both is so strong, but believe that if it is meant to be, then it will be,” Dumbledore said comfortingly.
“I just can’t believe that they’ve broken up!”
“Would you not rather that they were apart and happy than together and unhappy?”
“Being apart is what’s making them unhappy; I just wish they could see that.”
“With the climate that we are currently living in I would imagine that it would not be too long before something happens and they begin to re-evaluate the situation. They just need time, Harry, it is the greatest healer.” The older man had a knowledgeable glint in his eye.
“That’s the one thing we don’t have. How are things going out there?” Harry motioned in the direction of the window, where the sun was shining bright overhead. There were no visible signs of war in that little sliver of the world.
“Our progress is slow, the death toll increases each day, not by much, but by enough. Voldemort appears to be concentrating his efforts on finding a way to stop you, a small blessing but a blessing nonetheless,” he answered wearily. For a moment his true age crept into the waves of his voice and the distinct crackles created from a century of persistent battling were obvious to the naked ear.
November whizzed by in the blink of an eye, and before long it was already the last week and the Gryffindor team found themselves less than seven days away from the fiercest battle of the season; Gryffindor versus Slytherin. Harry and Ron were starting to feel rather nostalgic about the whole thing; it was only on the Friday before the game that they realised that it was going to be the last one they would play against their storied rivals. Part of Harry was rather glad about that, he was tired of Malfoy’s endless taunting interfering with his search for the Snitch. “Just once more,” Ron said quietly. The fact that the progressively taciturn boy had said something was what astounded Harry more than anything else.
“Once more what?” Harry inquired.
“All we’ve got to do is beat Slytherin this week and we’ll have proved whose best once and for all. We’ll show that smarmy little ferret what we’re made of. He’ll be mince meat when we’re finished with him, right, Harry?” Ron made him jump by smashing his clenched fist into the open palm of his other hand.
“Definitely, he won’t know what’s hit him!” Harry concurred. He was glad to see his friend finally venting some of his pent up anger. He knew Ron too well, after six years he would have been a pretty appalling friend if he didn’t, he knew that there was a torrent of rage bubbling just under the surface of the befreckled boy’s tranquil demeanour.
“Quidditch team to bed!” Ron shouted over the noisy crowd that was in the common room, excitement was at an all time high for this match. This year’s batch of seventh years were bigger fans of the team than any that had gone before them. Perhaps this was because they had two colleagues on the team, perhaps it was because one of them was the Head Boy, or maybe it was simply because their star Seeker, who had only ever lost them one match, was the Boy-Who-Lived. For once Harry didn’t really care if that was the reason, all that matter was that their passion for the game and their team was awe-inspiring. A loud roar of cheering followed the team up to their beds and was still hovering around the next morning when they got up.
The scene in the Great Hall was quite spectacular. Three quarters of the breakfast attendees were kitted out in scarlet and gold. In a scene, scarily reminiscent of the year before, Ellie was standing proudly at the Gryffindor table wearing a huge selection of badges down the front of her robes like buttons. Harry noticed that the top two were ‘Go Gryffindor!’ and ‘Lions to Lead!’ It wasn’t long before she had three of the school’s houses singing the Gryffindor house song that she had written. The noise was deafening and it certainly didn’t sound like they had practiced any harmonizing. They began to sing, if you could call it that, when the team left for the dressing rooms as well. Harry and Ron laughed as they passed the Slytherin table; the whole house was engaged in a group strop.
“So this is the big one,” Harry said as he strode purposefully between the benches in the dressing room. “I don’t care if we lose our last game this year. I don’t even care if we lose the Quidditch Cup; we need to win this game. We’ve got to. The Slytherins have been running around all week insulting our house and the people in it.” Harry gave Ron a pointed glance from which Ron looked away. “We’ve got to show them just how much better we are than them; we’re not going to sink to their level. We’ve got more talent in our little fingers than they’ve got in their whole team, we don’t need to resort to dirty tricks. We’re better than that!” Harry exclaimed in a sudden fit of impetus.
“He’s right!” Ron announced adamantly as he joined Harry mid stride. “They think they’re all that and they’re not. We’re going to prove that once and for all. We’re going to beat them, then we’re going to beat Hufflepuff and the Quidditch Cup is ours! We’ve beaten them before and we can do it again! Let’s beat the snot out of ‘em!” The red-haired boy demanded and threw his fist through the air to mime a vicious looking punch. The rest of the team whooped with him and then they marched out on the pitch to face their enemy.
Harry doubted if a single game of his Quidditch career had ever gone better. The Gryffindor team were little more than crimson blurs as they zoomed from one end of the pitch to the other. They didn’t stand still long enough for Crabbe or Goyle to aim a nasty Bludger at them and they shuffled the Quaffle between them too often for their opposition to mount any effective double teams. By the end of the first half hour Gryffindor was seventy points up and by the end of the first hour they were a hundred and twenty to nil. Somebody had dug up all the old support banners from the seasons gone by and when Harry saw the ‘Potter for President’ banner his heart leapt a little higher, that same placard had boosted his moral during his Quidditch debut all those years ago.
Suddenly the rainy and blustery November afternoon looked so much brighter. Almost like it was glinting gold. No, it WAS glinting gold. The Snitch was fluttering around aimlessly about three feet in front of a Ravenclaw first year, Harry flattened himself as close to his broom handle as possible, willing himself and the wood to be one. He chanced a look over his shoulder to see what Draco was doing, the blonde fool was hovering at the other side of the pitch shaking his head at Harry. He grinned; the stupid bloody ferret thought that he was Feinting. Harry came within an inch of crashing straight into the horrified first year before he pulled his broom sharply backwards into a roll and plucked the Snitch from the air effortlessly.
With a final score of two hundred and seventy to nil, they didn’t even need to show up to the final match of the season and the cup was theirs.
A/N: Man, I love Quidditch! The next chapter is….Moving On.