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There was a strange, uncomfortable feeling in Ron’s chest. He was fairly sure he’d had the feeling before, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on when. It bothered him, perhaps more than it should, that he couldn’t figure out what the feeling was.
He knew it wasn’t indigestion. It had been several days since the feeling started, and he’d been able to eat just fine (he was almost always able to eat). And anyway, the feeling had been relatively constant, if gradually growing stronger. He was also pretty sure that it had something to do with Hermione, as it seemed strongest when she was around.
Ron didn’t understand. He was glad they were friends, now, wasn’t he? He and Harry were heroes in Gryffindor for fighting the troll, it was great. Hermione wasn’t nearly as irritating as he’d thought, not now she was on their side. She’d even helped them with their homework a bit. Things were good. So why did he feel bad about it?
It was in transfiguration that he worked it out. Professor McGonagall was lecturing on the theory of the next spell they were to learn, which was to turn strings into rings, when Ron noticed Hermione was being unusually quiet. McGonagall posed several questions to the class, but Hermione didn’t raise her hand once. As they moved on to practicing, Ron watched Hermione from the corner of his eye. She looked very serious and determined, but it took a bit longer than usual for her to get the spell right. When she did, she looked up hopefully at the professor, who was walking down the aisle.
McGonagall pursed her lips when she came to Hermione. She glanced at Hermione’s transfigured ring, gave a curt nod, and continued on. The feeling in Ron’s chest flared painfully.
Suddenly, he knew what the feeling was. It was guilt. He felt guilty because Hermione had lied to protect him from getting in trouble, and lost the esteem of the teacher she respected most because of it. And he had saved her from the troll, but it was his fault she was in danger in the first place. He was the one who was such a beast to her that she cried all afternoon in a toilet.
McGonagall now thought that Hermione was an attention-seeking glory-hound. And, well, she was attention-seeking, but only in the sense that she was a teacher’s pet who wanted the attention of being called on when she had the right answer. She wasn’t the reckless kind of person who would go out looking for something as dangerous as a troll just for the fun of it. (Honestly, that sounded more like something Ron himself might do, if he was goaded into it by the twins or something.) It didn’t seem fair that Hermione should lose that respect because of something he had done.
He waffled all day over what to do about it. In Charms, he thought, Maybe I can swear to never make fun of her again! A moment later he shook his head. Ron knew himself well enough to know that would never last. In Herbology he had the idea that, to make up for it, he could offer to do her homework. He got a face full of spines when he snorted into his spiky bush – that one was absurd. Her grades would go down by at least half.
He shied away from the obvious solution of simply telling a teacher the truth. It would make the sacrifice of Hermione’s lie in vain, he told himself. And what if she hadn’t just lied to protect him? What if she was embarrassed that she’d been crying, and didn’t want the teachers to know?
At dinner, Harry and Hermione were talking about an invitation to take tea with Hagrid. Dean and Seamus were leaning over a caricature Dean had drawn and sniggering, and Neville was frowning at his Remembrall. Down the table, Fred and George were laughing loudly with Lee Jordan and the girls from the quidditch team.
Watching them, he was suddenly reminded of a time when the twins had gotten in trouble for breaking something of Ginny’s – or was it Percy’s? He couldn’t remember. Anyway, the punishment had been unusually severe, and the twins were sad about it for a whole week. A week, because that was how long it took for Ron to come clean to his father, because for once, Fred and George weren’t to blame. Ron had been the one to break whatever-it-was, and the guilt of causing the usually sunny pair to be so blue ate him up inside. Eventually he felt so bad about it he couldn’t go to sleep, and got up in the night to go seek out his father and tell him the truth.
That night, Arthur Weasley told Ron something he’d never forgot: “Sometimes, courage means owning up to our mistakes, and taking responsibility for them.” He said he was proud of Ron for telling him, and that it was the right thing to do. Ron was still punished, but it wasn’t as bad as it might’ve been because he held his father’s words in his heart, and they gave him strength.
All at once, Ron knew what to do.
He got up and went over to where Percy was sitting. “Hey, Perce,” he said.
“Yes, Ronald?” Percy said, after he had finished chewing, swallowed, and wiped his mouth with his napkin.
Ron fidgeted with his sleeve. “Can you tell me how to get to McGonagall’s office? I’ve never been.”
Percy straightened. “Certainly. May I ask what you need to see her for?”
Ron almost said he had a question about the homework, but then Percy was sure to offer his own help, and if Hermione overheard that conversation it was all over. “I… need to tell her something,” he said, instead.
Maybe it was the words, or something in his face, but Percy’s expression softened. “How about I take you there, make sure you don’t get lost. Is now a good time?”
Ron looked up at the high table. McGonagall was gone; she’d already eaten. He nodded.
“Come on, then,” Percy said briskly, getting up and leading the way out of the great hall. Ron followed him out.
Ron didn’t even notice that he’d only eaten a few bites of his dinner.
It was not long at all before they came to a big wooden door with McGonagall’s name on a plaque near the top. “Here we are, then,” said Percy, “I’ll knock for you, shall I?” and suited actions to words.
“Come in,” they heard through the door.
“I’ll leave you here, Ron,” Percy said in a quieter voice. “Good luck.”
Ron was too busy wiping his suddenly sweaty hands on his robes to say anything back, and then Percy was gone. Ron took a deep breath, and pulled open the door.
McGonagall was sitting behind her desk, grading papers. Her eyebrows rose when she saw him, but she said only, “Come, sit,” indicating the chair in front of the desk. Ron closed the door behind him, went to the chair, and sat. His throat was very dry.
“What brings you to my office, Mr. Weasley?” said McGonagall, putting her grading aside and fixing him with a piercing stare.
Ron opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“Well?”
“Hermionedidn’tgolookingforthetroll,” he blurted.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Hermione didn’t go looking for the troll,” Ron repeated. “She didn’t even know there was a troll until it came into the bathroom.”
“Is that so?” said McGonagall. Her eyebrows had reached her hairline. “And why, pray tell, did she not know of the troll? Was she not at the feast?”
“No, professor.”
“Do you know what she was doing instead?”
“She’d been in the bathroom since Charms. Because…” he took a deep breath, “because I made her cry.”
It was like a great weight off his chest. Ron found that once he’d started, he couldn’t stop.
“It’s my fault. She’d been trying to help me in Charms, but I thought she was just being bossy, so I was cross with her, and then after class I was mocking her to the other boys and made a comment about how it was no wonder she hadn’t got any friends, and she heard me, and later we heard from Lavender and Parvati that she’d been crying in the bathroom all afternoon. That’s why we went looking for her, we knew she didn’t know about the troll and wanted to warn her, and even that was Harry’s idea. She only lied to keep us from getting in trouble. At least, I think so. I guess it’s possible she was embarrassed about crying and lied because she didn’t want you to know she had been, so just in case don’t tell her I told you. But it wasn’t right that you thought she was some kind of reckless delinquent, not when she looks up to you so much, and it was my fault she was even in danger in the first place.”
When Ron finished, he was breathing hard, and he felt much better, but raw. Rather as if he’d been scrubbed to within an inch of his life, but on the inside. He looked up to find McGonagall’s face had become unreadable. He waited for her judgement with bated breath.
“Well. That’s quite a story. I suppose I shall have to return the points I took for Miss Granger’s recklessness, while taking five from you for cruelty to a fellow student.” While she spoke, she used her wand to float a jar down from a shelf, and open the lid. She motioned him towards it. “While I’m at it, I shall also award you seven points, for having the courage to come and tell me this.”
Ron let out a breath. That was much better than he’d feared.
She motioned to the jar again. “Go on, Mr. Weasley,” she said. “Have a biscuit."