lucetilogs | And the fight you've all been waiting for!

Opening the door, Ron knew that he wouldn't be able to keep the peace for thirty seconds. He'd given himself far too much credit, even if he knew that a screaming match with Hermione would only put him in a foul mood for the rest of the week.

"Oi," he told her, his voice hoarse in his efforts to keep from yelling right off. "We need to talk."

He wanted to tell her to send that evil feline of hers out of the room, since he didn't want it hissing and spitting at him when he made its beloved mistress angry. But then, she might need something to pet after he'd made her cry (because as much as he hated to acknowledge it, these kinds of arguments always made her cry, even if she thought he didn't know about it), so he could ignore the fleabag for now.

Hermione could tell immediately that something was wrong and her smile pulled downward into a concerned frown as she slowly got off the bed to stand next to it and look at Ron critically. He definitely sounded upset, maybe a couple of feet from being really upset, though she had no idea what over.

"About what?" she asked, bewildered.

Crookshanks hadn't hissed ~~yet~~, but he was sitting up on the bed, tail twitching. If his mistress knew what Ron was thinking, there certainly would have been harsh words earlier.

Already on the defensive - whether against Hermione's yelling or against any potentially good things she'd have to say about a certain ferret - Ron crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her for a moment before lightly kicking the door closed behind him, not wanting Harry to hear. The last thing he needed was for him to get caught in the middle of this and turn this into a two-against-one argument; Merlin knows Ron might just storm out and Disapparate for a few weeks, like the last time that had happened.

... though a small part of him flared up when he wondered if that wouldn't only tempt Malfoy to steal his other best friend away from him.

"About Malfoy," he said steadily. "Have you seen him lately?"

Hermione's brow furrowed. "No, I haven't. He's probably out by the lake." But Ron asking after Malfoy is like Harry suddenly deciding to like said lake and the Malnosso. "Why do you ask?"

Still clueless about the real reason, she's figuring he and Malfoy had another disagreement of sorts and now Ron's wanting to find a way to blast a hole into his skull. For multiple reasons, she did not want this to happen, not limited to the fact that her other best friend would have a fit.

Crossing his arms more tightly against his chest as he resisted the urge to yell at Hermione's tip-toeing, Ron remembered why he usually opted for blunt. Vague never worked for him, or at least, he didn't have the patience to make it work.

"I dunno. You reckon Harry might be with him?"

Hermione hadn't intended to be vague. She simply didn't know what Ron was on about.

"Maybe if they needed to talk about something? I don't have a Tracking Spell on them."

Why was he being so defensive-

And then it hit her. Had Ron finally figured it out? Had Harry told him? Was Ron now in her room to yell at her about all this, to find out if she knew, or to yell at her because she knew?

She knew she really ought to keep a straight face to not betray Harry, but it was always so hard to keep things from Ron, especially important ones like this. So she ended up looking more worried with a pinch of guilt.

Ron glared at her, wondering if he was going to have to be even more blunt. He was happy to do it, too, just take a big old sledgehammer of harsh truth and hit her over the head with it, but if her expression was anything to go by, she didn't need it. Pity.

"Maybe you should. Apparently, when they go off on their own, things get a little funny." Scowling, he asked, "Anything you'd like to tell me, by the way?"

No sledgehammer of truth needed. Ron's words spelled it all out for Hermione, and she didn't like it one bit. This... this wasn't going to end well.

"Ron... it's not what it looks like. Malfoy's different." It felt like it had with Harry, when she'd told him that Malfoy was trustworthy. Only he'd just come from an excursion to the lake and a near-death count of plus one. At least Ron didn't have that going for him, too.

"Everything's different here. We've been here a year and things have changed."

She looked into his eyes, pleading for him to understand.

Edited 2010-10-06 02:55 (UTC)

Ron blinked at her, utterly aghast at her words. He'd thought that Hermione would at least apologize and go into a lengthy explanation of what had happened and why she'd felt the need to keep mum about it. But-... but this-....

"He's 'different'?! What the hell kind of logic is that? 'He's different.' Hell, we can all change little by little, Hermione, but if there's one thing we've learned, it's that Death Eaters can't be trusted!"

Hermione winced the second Ron responded. She'd experienced the exact same thing with Harry, so she'd been expecting this sort of response, but that didn't make it sting any less.

"Most Death Eaters can't. I can't explain it any better than that he's not the same person you knew at home. He wasn't the same when I got here and that was over a year ago. This place changes people, Ron. It's changed me, just not as drastically. If you two would take the chance to talk instead of rowing with each other every chance you get, maybe you'd see!"

The longer she spoke, the higher and louder her voice became as she tried to make her point to Ron. She felt very strongly about this subject, especially since she'd been the first one from home who Malfoy had opened up to even a little. Things were different. So different.

"Oh, you've changed, have you?" Ron asked with a scoff. "I suppose you now think it's okay for your friends to spend their free time having tea with You-Know-Who and plotting to kill the Headmaster? Or that you like being tortured in the middle of your new mate's living room while he looks on, yeah? Right, if you've changed that much, Hermione, then maybe somebody oughta brand your arm, if they'd let a lowly Muggle-born into their ranks."

He knew that he was being hurtful, but he didn't care. Anyone who thought that Draco Malfoy had a decent bone in his body - or any of the Malfoys, for that matter - deserved to get the honest truth thrown in their faces.

Oh... ouch. That hurt a lot. All Hermione could do during Ron's shouting was stand there watching him with tears in her eyes. She looked, in a way, defeated. Her arms simply hung there by her sides and she made no move to shut him up.

"I know... it sounds like rubbish," she told him softly, holding herself in check as best she could, lest she start crying all over everything right then. "Harry and I would never put ourselves or anyone we care about in that kind of danger, Ron. You ought to... to trust us, trust that we've looked through everything, that we wouldn't be stupid enough not to make sure."

Despite her best efforts, a tear or ten fell down her cheeks anyway.

"Do you really think we want a life like that? That we'd want to get ourselves killed because it would undermine everything we've worked for at home?"

Did he really think so little of them? It was starting to remind her in a roundabout way of the fight they'd had before Christmas of that last year at home, when Ron and Harry had yelled so much at each other and then Ron had stormed off on them. Hermione didn't know what she'd do if he left now, even though she knew he wouldn't be able to go very far. The idea of losing him again was starting to hurt more than the fact that he was yelling at her.

... and now she was crying. Ron couldn't help but vaguely wonder how many times Hermione had cried because of him, and while it made him feel bad, it didn't make him feel any bit less right.

"I don't know what you want," he nearly spat out. "But it sure looks like the both of you want me to give my trust over to someone who's hated me and my family before he ever even met us, just because we don't have the money his family does and because we associate with people like you. If you've looked through everything, how come I'm not hearing any examples? Give me something to work with, something more than 'he's changed' or 'things are different here,' because all of that's a load of rot."

"I'm not saying trust him!" Hermione protested, holding her ground. "I'm saying trust us. Give him a chance! Give us a chance! He could have killed me when I first arrived. He had a wand and I didn't. I was weak from Bellatrix torturing me and he was strong from a month of being here before me."

If he wanted examples, she'd give him examples! Sorry, Ron. She barreled onward without letting him burst in and interrupt her.

"How about the nightmare? He could have let Harry suffer and die in his own head, but he didn't! He helped us, helped me, the little Mudblood his family hates so much, come up with a way to help Voldemort's greatest enemy!

"He even comforted me after Harry and I rowed over him. If you think Harry hasn't already thought all this through, too, then you're clearly off your rocker. Harry and I had a huge row over Malfoy almost a year ago. He didn't think Malfoy was trustworthy and I did. I'd already seen how Malfoy fits in here, but Harry didn't believe me. So we rowed. And we didn't talk for several days because of it. I've been through this already, but if you won't believe me, fine. But don't call us idiots and say we haven't thought it all through, because we have! For a whole year!"

Finally, she stopped, breathing hard and staring at him. Her tears were long since gone, replaced now with anger. They'd be back later, but for now, she was just angry. How could Ron accuse them of not thinking things through? How could he think she wouldn't? Thinking things through logically was her forte. It made sense to her, though. Ron just didn't like change, especially not this magnitude of change. And his reaction when things upset him like this was to lash out. Hermione had expected it. But it still hurt and angered her.

Ron's angry exclamation of, "Don't say that word!" at the mention of the word 'Mudblood,' seemed to go unheard, and if there was one thing he hated, it was being ignored. Especially when he worried for a moment that she would provide a valid reason that he couldn't shoot down.

Of course, Ron was the king of shooting things down. Though, admittedly, he was surprised by how calm and reasonable he sounded compared to Hermione. "Snape went through hell and back to help Harry. But he only did it to stay close to him, because those were his orders. Malfoy's no different. And if you think I'm going to fall under his little spell just like the rest of you did, sorry, it's not happening."

He paused for a moment before adding, "And I never called you an idiot. I'm bright enough to know better than that, at least. But you're too trusting for your own good sometimes, and if he hurts you or Harry... well, I'm just gonna have to kill him."

Edited 2010-10-08 01:02 (UTC)

Oh Hermione heard Ron's exclamation. She just simply didn't stop to acknowledge it. Her frustration had peaked by then and most of his words weren't helping her mood. Normally, she probably would have allowed the conversation to end just like it was, on a slightly better note than it had been. However, she couldn't help defending what she knew was right. And that was probably to be expected from her.

"You weren't here when Riddle was, either," she insisted, folding her arms over her chest and digging her fingers into them. "He protected us. He could have just told Riddle the whole thing and let Riddle duel Harry right then to be done with it, but he didn't. He sided with us, against his own mother." Granted, his mother had been sixteen at the time, but Ron didn't need to hear that. The whole thing had been so awkward at the time.

"And Snape was here at that time, too. Why not just tell him and let him do the dirty work?" Her voice had reached its shrill pitch by now, signaling that there really wasn't much hope of changing her mind. She was pretty much stuck on this side of the fence and there wasn't any hopping over it.

"When I found Riddle's wand and Harry hid it, Malfoy could have just tried to get the location from Harry and then told Riddle where it was. But he didn't. He's had so many chances to kill us and he hasn't."

And if that doesn't do it, she doesn't know what will.

Ron was really ready to just let it go, maybe roll his eyes a little if Hermione chose to badger him about his very serious threat on Malfoy's life. But her persistence, her constant claims that Malfoy was better than slime and that Ron would somehow grow to see it... bloody hell, how infuriating can one girl get?

"Merlin, haven't you learned anything?" he nearly bellowed at her. "If there's one thing their ilk is good at, it's biding their time and being patient. Snape waited all those years to turn the tables, and how long did it take Riddle to build up what he needed to get where he wanted to be? For all you know, Malfoy told Riddle everything he wanted to know, and the two of them were just waiting for the best moment to strike! Waiting for someone to be dumb enough to let their guard down and trust one of them!"

Harry has been trying to go on with his day as best he could. Things were already pretty awkward because of his outing himself, but when wasn't his life awkward? However, it was becoming harder and harder to ignore the shouting coming from upstairs. With those two voices, it could only mean one thing - Ron and Hermione were arguing, and about something nasty at that. He could guess what it might be, but there was only one way to be sure. It might also help quiet things down before some of the neighbors started wondering.

He knocks, swallowing hard before he opens the door anyway. It's not like they would have heard them under those dulcet tones. "I can hear you across the house, you know."

"I've learned plenty!" Hermione shot back, feeling her temper soar again. "I've learned that things can change and the rules we thought were rules back home aren't rules here. He's had plenty of good moments to strike!" Plenty of perfect ones, even. How about that time they traded bodies? Why not just kill Harry's body then? He'd known a lot about Harry's physical weakness after that.

But of course, just as she was winding up to add to her retort, Harry burst in. She hadn't heard the knock, of course, but she turned towards him furiously, not intending to take her anger out on him, but of course ending up doing just that anyway. "Maybe I want to be heard!" Maybe then, something would get through Ron's thick head.

With barely even a second's pause, she turned back to Ron. "Don't trust him, then, but don't go off like Harry and I are too stupid to remember, or that we're stupid enough to trust him immediately." It had taken a very, very long time, after all, for Harry to get to this point. And Hermione had only done it once she was certain of Malfoy as well.

At this point, she was about two wrong breaths from stalking out of the room.

Harry's presence made Ron flinch, as did Hermione's continued raving. He'd been hoping to take out his disappointment with Hermione without getting Harry personally involved, because then Harry might think that they weren't as square as they'd been when the bomb first dropped. In truth, Ron pitied Harry, thought that he must have gotten a bit touched in the head, so all of this was clearly Hermione's fault for not steering Harry straight while Ron hadn't been in Luceti. So while he felt somewhat sorry for Harry, that wasn't going to keep him from speaking his mind. Few things ever did.

"You know, if you're the one who keeps bringing up that you're stupid, maybe that's your own conscience trying to tell you something," he shot back. "Do what you like; you're too stubborn to do anything else, anyway. I'm just telling you to watch yourself, the both of you, so stop acting like I'm asking you to chop off your wand arm or something!"

Harry glanced between the two of them. Of course they would fight about this. Of course something he did was something his best friends would have to fight about. And while he felt pretty justified in his own version of the 'Malfoy is completely horrible, stop trusting him!' argument, that was mostly because he was half-drowned and bruised up from a fight. He's not really buying Ron's side of things, since he doesn't think Ron has faced any danger from Draco since he's been there. He moved closer to Hermione, as if he needed to emphasize that he was on her side of this.

"She's not the one who's stupid, seeing as you are too thick to understand something that both of us are trying to tell you! Is it so easy to believe we're that blind and trusting?!" He was still pretty insulted at the idea.

Hermione hadn't really wanted Harry to have to get involved, but she couldn't deny it was nice to have the extra support. She would have been perfectly fine with Ron just promising he wasn't going to hex Malfoy before he understood fully what was going on, but it was the added insult that Ron didn't trust her and Harry to have fully checked out the situation before they jumped into things like this that had her really upset.

"We don't want anyone to get hurt here," she continued, trying to build on what Harry had been saying. "I know it's hard to believe, but trust us, Ron. We haven't been Confunded or Imperius'ed. We've just been here for a year and we've seen things even wizards at home wouldn't believe. I don't expect you to be perfect friends with Malfoy right away, but at least give him a chance to prove his side."

Probably the wrong words to end with, but she was trying to show Ron she understood where he was coming from. She just didn't think he was ready to even consider where she and Harry were standing.

... and this was why Ron didn't want Harry in on this. It was bad enough feeling as though he had somehow become the bad guy in Hermione's eyes, but knowing that both of his best friends stood against him on a topic as unchangeable as Draco Malfoy was just gut-wrenching.

He was glad Hermione was there, though. While he had to bite back the hurt at Harry's comment, he wheeled immediately on Hermione, too shocked to remember that he was at all emotionally conflicted, "Friends 'right away?' You think I expect to be friends with him ever?! Especially when he's already proven his side a dozen times over back at home? You remember, that place where things made an awful kind of sense? Seven years. I had to put up with seven years of being called a 'blood traitor' along with every rotten name in the book, and my dad had to take that bollocks from his dad for even longer. Normal people don't let seven years' worth of being an utter ass slide in just one year...."

And he glanced off at Harry, then, before quickly looking back at Hermione as he abruptly shut his mouth in a scowl, the tips of his ears going red.

Harry doesn't like getting in the middle of their fights, but he feels like he's partially to blame for all this. He would've been okay if they could've agreed to disagree, but when do Gryffindors do that for anything?

Not willing to just stay on the sides for this shouting match, Harry meets Ron's glance with a look of frustration. "And you think neither of us had any kind of problems with him in the past? I'm not saying that he's not guilty of anything, because he is and I'm not about to forget that, but he's changed. Unlike being back at home, where things make a terrible kind of sense," Harry spat angrily, having had a little too much of home's 'sense' for anyone's lifetime, "he's not surrounded by Death Eaters and people who don't give a damn about love or friendship or anything important. You might have noticed, but he's really the most pathetic Death Eater there happens to be. He's an arse, but he's finally learning about things that matter. He's changing!"

It wasn't that Ron was the bad guy in Hermione's eyes. Contrary to what he seemed to think, she did understand where he was coming from. But this was another case of Hermione really believing in Draco and his ability to change. Like several people had said already, he'd become her "project," much as she'd protested use of that word.

"I know, Ron," she pleaded, looking as though this was tearing her up inside. "I had to go through that, too, when I first got here." She glanced at Harry, silently telling him that she appreciated the back up. His words were exactly what she'd been trying to get through Ron's head. "No one can be around you and Harry all the time and not change!" Something she knew quite well from personal experience.

"Please, Ron. I'm not asking you to be automatic friends with him. Just don't go out of your way to hex him." Or make idiots of both of them.

People don't change, not at their core. It was something that Ron had long ago come to terms with. The twins would always be troublemakers. Percy would always be a prat. Hermione would always be a know-it-all. Snape would always be a git. So Harry and Hermione's assertions that Malfoy was 'changing' was just a little hard to swallow. And by 'a little,' one of course means 'a lot.'

He scowled, feeling like he was painted into a corner. He hadn't wanted to believe that either of them were really so far gone that they'd be completely oblivious to reason, but apparently, that was exactly what had happened. Maybe he'd be lucky and would discover that this was all just the work of a potion, meaning there had to be some way to counter it.

"Trust me," he muttered, "if I hex him, it wouldn't be because I went out of my way. But if he so much as looks at either of you the wrong way, I'm not above making sure he's got too many black eyes to look at much of anything."

Harry found it much harder to see it that way, having seen too much of Draco to really find him evil. Voldemort, Snape, Bellatrix, and Lucius were unflinchingly evil, whereas Draco was misguided and had proven he wanted to try and change. That made all the difference to Harry.

He didn't like ganging up on Ron about it, but he didn't want Hermione to take the brunt of things for something that was his fault. He too could see where Ron was coming from, but he felt so frustrated in the fact that it seemed like his side went unheard. "Don't you think we can defend ourselves? If he actually attacks us, fine, but I don't see how you expect that to just happen out of the blue these days. He's different."

Hermione just looked at Ron pleadingly. She didn't think at this point that anything was going to change his mind and she couldn't help thinking that all this arguing was going to make things worse. But what could she say that would help? How could she explain to Ron what it was about Draco that made her and Harry trust him this time around when nothing else was working to change his mind? What could be said that hadn't already?

For the first time in a very long time, maybe even in her life, Hermione was at a loss for words. She simply looked at Ron, the heartache in her eyes clear, at least to her. She didn't want to row with him, didn't want to stop talking to him again. But with the way everything was going... how could they keep civil?

...And things had been going so nicely recently, too.

With a slightly choked sound coming from her, she rushed for the door. If no one stopped her, she'd be out like a flash and running out of the house. She didn't want to be there when she finally broke down over this.

Ron gawked at Harry, not sure how much more he could scoff without veritably spraining something. He was about to say that he didn't understand how Harry could not expect something like that to happen out of the blue sometime, but then something happened. Well, two things, really.

For one, it sounded as though Hermione was sobbing before making a mad break for the door.

And for another, though he could have easily intercepted her, Ron took a step away and let her leave.

He took no pleasure in imagining her crying (indeed, it broke his heart more than he liked to admit), but he certainly wasn't going to stand in her way from doing what she believed to be the appropriate thing. After all, thinking of Hermione crying just gave him one more reason to hate Malfoy.

Looking up at Harry, he levelly remarked, "I guess this conversation is over."

Harry is more than steeled for round two, but it's Hermione who balks first. Having been on the other side of that argument, he feels a twinge of guilt that she's upset like that yet again.

But he's seen other arguments like this, and he knows that it's one that's going to take some time to reconcile. Harry sighs as Hermione takes off, and bristles at Ron's level reply. "I suppose I'll be taking care of her then." He knows it's a bit underhanded, but it's his way of saying that he's hurt by this, too.

And the fight you've all been waiting for!

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I would imagine the housemates could hear this tirade from Hermione XD

... I imagine all of Luceti would. XD

oh these two |D;

ikr? XD

Well, this person heard it!

\o/ lol they get Harry linefacing XD

isn't that his default expression when these two are arguing?

pretty much. it's his default expression from OOTP onwards.

yeaaaah pretty much. Hermione's is perpetual worrylines

Whereas Ron maintains a wide variety of expressions.

Ron beats everyone in terms of expressions but he's so linefacey on the DH promo stuff. No, Ron, no!

sob DH

Ron does not lineface! Hush up. :|

But the promo stuff. :(

Ron linefaces because he thinks it should be over already?

... but they ALL do that.....

They're sharing the lineface burden. Harry can't do it alone.