Dear Dumby by Oppungo
Chapter Notes: As Dumby's advice kicks in, Harry has to struggle alone to make something that even slightly resembles a potion, whilst Ron and Hermione are determined to beat each other at who cares about who least and Crabbe strives to prove that he isn't studi - stupid. Also, someone else gets an idea...
“What’s she doing? Move over Harry, I can’t see!” Came Ron’s impatient whisper. Harry groaned, for what seemed the thousandth time that lesson.
“Most probably her Potion, Ron!” Harry said exasperatedly. “Like we should be doing…come on, especially as Snape’s in an even worse mood than usual.”
“What?” Ron interrupted.
“Yeah, I didn’t think it was possible either,” Harry agreed, stealing a glance at Snape who was glaring at…well, everybody.
“No, not that! I’m talking about Hermione!” Ron explained, as he peered over Harry’s shoulder again to get a better view. Unfortunately for him, Hermione saw him staring, and gave him a very strange look before turning back to her cauldron.
“When are you not?” Harry said in an undertone. “I wouldn’t worry about it Ron,” he continued at a regular level. “She works with other people all the time, and besides, Dean’s going out with Parvati.” He added in a reassuring voice as he added three more newt eyes.
“Look! She’s laughing!” Harry rolled his eyes, and tried to turn their potion from something resembling slug slime to the red solution they were meant to have. “Didn’t you hear them this morning? They were having this huge argument, I wouldn’t be surprised if they split up. Then Dean will make his move on Hermione!”
“Do you think food colouring would work?” Harry asked, choosing to ignore Ron’s hysteria and concentrate on the class work. “Well? Ron? Ron?”
But Ron had already charged over to Hermione’s table, oblivious to the looks he was getting across the room. Harry groaned, but resisted the urge to bang his head on the table again, he already had one scar, he didn’t particularly want another one.
“Hey, Hermione, have you got, um, a spare quill you can lend me?” Hermione looked slightly disgruntled, but looked through her bag begrudgingly.
“No, sorry Ron, I must have left them up in my dorm. Where’s yours?” She inquired, stirring her potion, which Ron was annoyed to see, was a perfect red solution.
“I threw it at Malfoy,” he explained, shrugging his shoulders at Dean’s laughter, which nearly caused him to tip over their perfect potion.
“Why?” Hermione asked in disbelief as she hurried to straighten out the cauldron.
“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time…” Ron trailed off to the sound of Dean’s sniggers.
“Here, I might have one mate,” offered Dean. Harry, who had since given up on their potion, found this rather amusing, seeing as this put Ron in the same predicament that he had been in when he had to accept help from Cedric in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. He could practically see the battle going on inside Ron’s head.
“Nah, that’s alright, I’ll just ask…Snape!” At this, both Hermione and Dean gave him very odd looks, but Ron was saved explaining, by Snape barking at them to bottle up their solutions as he would be going round to inspect them. Harry had extreme difficulty in prising their slime away from the cauldron, although he managed it eventually.
“P, P, P, P, D,” Snape spat out spitefully, backing away from Neville and Seamus’ ominous smelling black gunge. “Ah, Draco. P+, P, P,” he carried on. At last he reached Harry and Ron’s desk. “D-,” he smiled maliciously. “Right, copy the homework down from the board. What Weasley?”
“Please can I borrow a quill, Sir?” Ron virtually wilted under his glare.
“What do you think this is, Christmas?” Snape snapped sarcastically. This caused quite a confusion over on the Slytherin side of the dungeon.
“No it isn’t,” Goyle muttered. “Is it? 30 days in September, April, June and - “
“Shut up Goyle, don’t be such an idiot,” Malfoy said scornfully.
“Hang on Draco, I don’t agree with that!” Crabbe said, slowly, trying to remember the response from Dear Dumby. Draco looked at him in disbelief. “You shouldn’t just, just,” Crabbe paused, thinking. This took a while, so Malfoy had moved on to clearing away. “You shouldn’t just put me and Goyle down, just because we’re studi - stupid.” He announced triumphantly.
“Are you still going on about - whatever? Listen Crabbe, if you don’t like it, you can go be someone else’s sidekick.” Draco didn’t notice Crabbe’s glower, as he edged away over to Millicent Bulstrode…
“Dear Viktor,” Hermione dictated out loud in the common room. Harry rolled his eyes, but Ron appeared to be taking it quite well, and seemed to be immersed in ‘Hogwarts a History’. Harry personally would have found it more convincing if it had been a different book, and if it had been the right way up. Though he wasn’t altogether surprised, it seemed as if all day Hermione had been trying to provoke Ron, but he had so far avoided rising to the bait, and he had been unconditionally pleasant tempered. Although this made Harry’s life a lot easier, he wasn’t sure how healthy it was, besides, Harry found it all quite unnerving.
This went on for a while, Hermione making comments on Viktor and her letter, and Ron resolutely ignoring them, until Hermione’s ringing laughter brought Ron out of his reserve, and he looked up at the source of the noise.
“What?” he asked in what was clearly meant to be a light tone, but sounded more gruff than anything else, as if he’d swallowed another slug.
“Oh, nothing,” replied Hermione in a more convincing fake airy tone. “Just something Viktor said. He can be so funny sometimes!” Harry noted that Ron only emitted a small grunt in response. “Do you think I should sign it ‘Love Hermione’ or ‘Lots of Love Hermione’ ?” At this Ron spluttered, and Harry thought he saw a flicker of a smile on Hermione’s face, but it instantaneously disappeared after Ron’s reply.
“I’m not sure Vick - tor,” Ron spoke his name with great difficulty, “will mind either way.” At this, Hermione looked rather annoyed, and announced she was going to bed. As soon as she was gone, Ron punched the cushion he was leaning on violently. Harry raised his eyebrows at him, though not entirely surprised. “What?” He asked indignantly. “I was being nice!”
“Hang on a minute Ron, is your lip bleeding or something?” Harry noticed a few drops of red (the colour their potion should have been) seeping out of the corner of Ron’s mouth.
“I don’t think so…no, it’s only my tongue!” Ron explained, fairly cheerfully. “Must have been from biting it.”
Madam Pomfrey concluded that it was indeed from biting it, and had Ron been trying to stop himself talking for some reason? Harry thought he might just know the reason…
“Urgh, I just don’t know what to do Lavender!” Parvati wailed at her friend, who was just entering the room. “I mean, Dean’s just being so insensitive! Can you believe he didn’t comment on my new dress robes?” Lavender shook her head. “What do you think I should do?”
“I’m not sure,” Lavender said sympathetically. “But here’s something that might help.” Lavender threw the latest edition of 'Dear Dumby’ onto Parvati’s bed as she began to leaf through it.
“Yes!” She exclaimed suddenly, upsetting Lavender’s nail polish in the process. “It’s perfect! It says here, ’jealousy, whether its…to force out feeling’s he already has’. Yes! So if I make Dean jealous, it should force out his feelings on my new dress robes!” Parvati beamed.
“Well, if that’s what it says…” Lavender contemplated. “But who could you use to make him jealous…?”
A/N: Ooh, who do you think Parvati will use to make Dean jealous? Will Ron and Hermione ever come out of denial? Will the Slytherin trio be broken up? And will Goyle ever figure out what time of year it is? Well...probably not. Oh well! Hope you enjoyed it!
A/N 2: Check out my new fic - Tragedies, Tears and Black Velvet Boxes. It's in the Ron/Hermione section and I'd really like all of your opinions of it, as it's quite different from this!! Thanks!!