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“From tiny seeds do strong trees grow.”
Filthy. Absolutely filthy.
Ron knew he was far from the tidiest person on earth, but he reckoned even his room at the Burrow was downright pristine compared to this pigsty. Rust stains on the walls, mouldy drapes, dust at least two inches thick on the surface of every piece of broken furniture in the room--and cobwebs, loads and loads of cobwebs. He resisted the violent urge to shudder.
This would take the whole bloody day to clean.
With a heavy sigh, he scanned the room, trying to decide where on earth he should even begin (definitely not with the cobwebs). No sooner than had he dropped his rags and scrub brushes and bottles of Doxycide did the door swing open and Ginny bounded into the room, disturbing the layer of dust on the floor, which sent the both of them into a fit of coughs. Ron had to wait for the cloud of dust to settle before he attempted speech again.
“Watch it, would you??” He waved his hand about helplessly--as if that gesture could actually clear the air. “I’d like to keep my lungs working, if you don’t mind, thanks.”
“Oh, stop fussing,” Ginny said, before letting out another cough. “It’s not...” Cough. “... that...” Cough again. “...dusty...”
Ron looked around once more in disgust, then his heart gave a little leap; he could have sworn he had seen something crawl across one of the twin beds just now. He made a mental note to give that bed to Harry.
“Right,” he muttered. “Spotless.”
“It could do with a bit of cleaning.”
He turned back to look at her and arched an eyebrow.
“OK, more than a bit.”
“Something I can help you with, or did you just come here to bugger it all up before I’d even had a chance to begin cleaning up this mess?”
“I just came in to borrow one of these,” she said, reaching down for one of the bottles of Doxycide. “Our room is in an even worse state, if that’s any consolation.”
Ron had been only half-listening up to that point, having started on polishing the old wardrobe, but for some reason, those last few words caught his attention straight away.
“It’s... what?”
“It’s in bad shape. Far worse than this.”
“But... but... you can’t make Hermione stay in a room like that!”
Ginny’s mouth quirked into an odd smirk. Ron suddenly felt his face grow hot.
What the bloody hell was that all about?
“I wasn’t planning to. Don’t be thick, of course I’ll clean up!” She held up the bottle of Doxycide. “See?”
“Oh... right, well... well if you can’t get it clean enough, you know... you’re welcome to trade rooms with me and Harry...”
The smirk on her face was beginning to transfigure itself into a grin. Suddenly Ron felt the temperature in the room rise about ten degrees. Maybe he was coming down with something. Yeah, he was most definitely coming down with something.
“Well, you know,” he stammered, “you girls like things especially clean and stuff... We’re not as particular as you are.”
Ginny’s eyes flicked upwards towards the cobweb by the window, where a spider was shimmying down on a long thread of spun spider-silk, then she turned back to Ron and gave him a grin that made him feel as if she knew something he didn’t.
“No,” she said, in an unmistakably taunting tone, “you’re not particular at all.”
She swung the door open again, unleashing another dust cloud.
“Thanks for the Doxycide!” she called out in a sing-song voice, then slammed the door behind her.
Ron could only stand there staring at the door in silence, spray bottle in hand, unable to shake that odd feeling that had struck him out of nowhere like a lightning bolt the minute Ginny had mentioned Hermione’s name. It was only then that he realised a slow panic had begun to rise within him. Only trouble was, he had no idea what for.
* * *
It had indeed taken very nearly the whole of yesterday to finish cleaning the room. Ron didn’t know what time he’d finally collapsed into bed, but he reckoned it must have been well after midnight; his arm had been about ready to fall off by nine-thirty, and he could barely hold up his body anymore by eleven.
He jerked awake and caught sight of his arm (there seemed to be a thousand pins and needles pricking him all along the length of it), and he realised with a start that he was still wearing his clothes from yesterday. His still groggy brain was only now remembering that he had been too tired last night to change into his pyjamas. He tried to roll over, but his aching muscles protested the tiniest of movements, and he decided right then and there he was probably dying.
Yeah, that was it. Dying.
After a while, he decided to brave it and force his eyes open. He surveyed the damage, then let out a groan; his clothes were all wrinkled, as if he’d slept in them all night--which he had--and they still stunk of sweat from the hard day’s labour he’d had to endure yesterday. If he weren’t so exhausted at that moment, he’d drag himself out of bed, towards the nearest shower. For a brief moment, he toyed with the idea of trying to Apparate, though he hadn’t the faintest idea how it was done. It looked easy enough, though; after all, if Fred and George could manage it, surely anybody could.
“Ron!! Oi, Ron!!”
Speaking of his evil brothers...
The air snapped suddenly and two rather heavy objects appeared out of nowhere, crushing him with their weight.
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty!”
He felt a hand smack him hard on the back of his head and his eyes flew open. Fred’s Cheshire cat grin was inches away from his face.
“Mum’s calling everyone down for breakfast,” he said. “Get a move on.”
“Bugger off.”
“Nice way to talk to your older brother. Didn’t anyone teach you to respect your elders?”
Ron grabbed the pillow and burrowed his head underneath it.
“Go away.”
“Fine, be that way,” said George. His voice was muffled through the pillow, but not nearly enough; Ron could still hear him. “Come on, then. More eggs for us!”
Ron felt the bed shift as the both of them Disapparated, but his joy was short-lived when he heard Ginny’s voice outside the door merely seconds later, followed by the pounding of her fist.
“Ron!”
He held the pillow down more tightly over his ears. Maybe if he ignored her, too, she’d go away on her own.
“Ron, you really ought to get up now!”
“Iwangobacktosleep!!”
He heard his name uttered a few more times, the last accompanied by other words that Ron was sure his mum would be none too happy to hear from his darling sister’s mouth.
Then silence came, blessed silence. Ron strained to hear for any stray sounds at first, tentatively lifting the pillow up by just an inch. When he was sure Ginny had stalked off, he tossed the pillow off to the side and breathed a sigh of relief.
Right. Maybe he could get in a few more minutes of sleep in peace after all.
Or not.
He heard the door creak open, but he kept his eyes closed.
Pretend you’re asleep... Just pretend you’re asleep and they’ll go away...
“Ron...”
His heart slid to his throat. That had been a girl’s voice. And it had most certainly not been Ginny.
He felt the end of his bed sink down slightly at the very same moment he pried his eyes open, and he very nearly forgot the age-old habit he’d mastered called breathing.
She was sitting at the end of his bed. His bed. Bushy hair, big teeth (well, not so big anymore, come to that), brown eyes alight with excitement. And she looked as if sitting at the end of his bed was something completely normal.
Clearly Hermione Granger had lost the ability to think straight in the week they’d been apart.
“What...”
He sat bolt upright, realising too late that that wasn’t such a good idea at all, then fought a losing battle to stop all the blood rushing to his face.
Blimey, of all the times to turn red...
“What... you... in here... sitting... bed...”
She raised her eyebrow in that familiar way, and suddenly he wished the earth would open up and swallow him whole.
“You might want to try a verb, Ron,” she said, smiling.
Bloody hell, why did she have to smile right at that moment?
“Oh,” she said, as if only realising something just then, “is this bothering you?” She looked down at the bed, then stood and straightened her skirt. “Sorry.”
Ron noticed that her cheeks were even pinker than usual right now.
“It’s just that... it never used to bother you before, when I... Erm... well... sorry.”
Ron thought he would have recovered the power of speech now that she had assumed a more appropriate position--away from his bed--but nothing came out when he opened his mouth. Desperate not to look even more like a idiot, he clamped his mouth shut.
“Well, er... I just came in here to take you down to breakfast. Everybody was calling you, and... your mum thought if I came up here, you wouldn’t be rude about it, at least.”
A sort of strangled groan came out of his throat of its own volition in that moment; Ron felt his face catch fire once more.
Oh God... Oh God, oh God, kill me now...
“So, er...” He hoped he could get his vocal chords to work properly now. “... when did you get here?”
“Only just arrived,” she said. She was fiddling with the hem of her shirt, then must have noticed he was watching, because she suddenly placed both hands behind her back. “Dumbledore came with me on the portkey to make sure I’d get here safely, then he hurried off back to Hogwarts, I expect.”
“Oh.”
Nice one, Weasley, he thought. Very smooth, that.
“He said he didn’t think Harry should come over for a while yet. Not until things are more settled over here.”
“Right,” said Ron, proud that he had managed to avoid croaking, which would have surely been disastrous, “I reckon that’s best.” He sighed and straightened further in bed. “Harry’s going to be in a right strop about it, you know that, don’t you? He’s going to hate us for keeping this from him.”
“I know...” She started to sink down to his bed again, but seemed to catch herself in mid-motion and stopped just in time. “But I don’t see that we have any choice. Dumbledore wants us quiet.”
Ron nodded. Nothing more could come out of this conversation. They would just go round and round in circles.
“So...”
She blinked back at him.
“Yes?”
“Erm... bet you didn’t expect to see me again this soon, did you?”
She smiled and laughed softly, much to his surprise.
“Well, I have to admit it was a bit of a shock to get that letter from Dumbledore just two days after I’d settled back at home. It certainly shook up my summer plans a great deal.”
Ron felt his throat go tight all of the sudden. Surely she didn’t mean...
“Oh... right, you’d probably been planning to, er... go to Bulgaria...”
She seemed genuinely taken aback by his words – confused, even. Then the confusion was replaced by something else, but he had no idea what that something else was.
“Bulgaria?”
“Well, yeah... you said that Viktor had...” He cleared his throat. “I mean, I know it’s really none of my business whether... forget I said...”
“You’re doing it again.”
Ron furrowed his brow.
“What?”
“Speaking in piecemeal,” she said, laughing. “But I think I was able to decipher that one, too.”
Thank God.
“I wasn’t going to go to Bulgaria,” she said. “I was never going to.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “Look, with things as... well, serious as they are, I couldn’t very well just go off to a foreign country and have a grand time sightseeing when there were more important matters here.”
Not for the first time this morning, Ron was rendered speechless once more. It didn’t seem to matter that much, though, because Hermione fell silent too, and suddenly he felt a great urge to say... something.
“Er... I reckon we should go downstairs, then,” he said, getting out of bed in earnest. “Mum’ll come in here herself if we stay up here any longer.”
“Oh,” she said, as if suddenly snapping out of her thoughts, “of course...”
He gave her an awkward smile, the best he could manage at the moment, then gestured to the door. She returned his smile and nodded, following him when he started to cross the room.
“Ron-”
He paused at the door and turned to look at her. “Yeah?”
“You... you didn’t really think I was going to go to Bulgaria... did you?”
For a brief moment, Ron debated whether it would be best to tell the truth right now. Then his conscience won out, and he said, “Well... yeah... I s’pose I did.”
“Oh.” A pause. Then, “If I had, would you have...”
Ron waited for her to finish the sentence, but it didn’t seem as if she was going to anytime soon.
“Would I have... what?”
She shook her head and reached for the doorknob.
“Never mind,” she said. “Let’s go and get breakfast.”
“Right.”
He let her go ahead, staying for just a hairsbreadth of a second longer at the door before he followed her down the staircase.