christmasspirit | "soaring part 8" by gingerbred

chapter 08 fighting

Characters: Harry Potter / Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Dean Thomas, Ginny Weasley, the Fat Lady

14 September, 1998. Harry and Hermione teach each other a few things, as good friends do; Ginny and Ron, on the other hand, aren't likely to learn a bloody thing from one another. And Dean, for his part, is finding life in the tower... confronting.

Originally Published: 2023-07-09 on LJ / DW
Words: 4.6 k
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Characters: Harry Potter (8G, Captain, Seeker), Hermione Granger (8G, Head Girl), Ron Weasley (8G, Prefect, Keeper), Dean Thomas (8G, Chaser), Ginny Weasley (7G, Chaser)

Mentioned briefly: the Fat Lady (Gryffindor's guardian portrait), Draco Malfoy (8S, Prefect, Captain, Seeker), Minerva McGonagall (Headmistress), Severus Snape (Head of Slytherin and Deputy Headmaster), George Weasley

Previously:

The previouslies are very robust. If you've recently read the Christmas Spirit stories, skip them, if not, no worries, I've got you covered. You can find links to the individual stories / chapters in the "christmas spirit index" (LJ / DW / AO3).

01 August, 1997. Fleur invited friend and fellow TriWiz champion Viktor Krum to her wedding to Bill Weasley. Upon seeing Hermione again, Viktor compliments her, prompting Ron to summarily lead her onto the dance floor. Viktor then asks Harry, disguised as 'Barny Weasley', about the pair, and is disappointed to hear that they are 'sort of' together, albeit not officially a couple. Harry may have taken some liberties there. DH 1

12 September, 1998. A group of masked individuals attack Draco and Pansy, the 8th year Slytherin Prefects, as they make their rounds. Harry and Ron, coincidentally in the vicinity due to some late night mischief of their own, come to their rescue. S 02

13 September, 1998. The news of an attack on students at Hogwarts upsets Ginny greatly, and she's struggling not to have a panic attack. Neville, in an effort to reassure her, promises he'll let her know if the Troubles are returning to the school. S 07

13 September, 1998. Ron tells Harry and Ginny that the Masks the attackers wore are Mischief Masks, one of the Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes' range. Harry wants to report them to Professor McGonagall, but Ron makes it clear that's likely to cause some unfortunate repercussions for his brother which neither Harry nor Ginny wish to risk. S 07

Monday, 14 September, 1998

Gryffindor common room

The first sign Harry has that something isn't right is the Fat Lady. When he reaches her portrait after classes Monday, the good woman's face is all scrunched up, she's moaning about her aching head and holding her ears closed. The theatrics just never stop with that portrait. When she finally spots Harry through one very narrowed eye, she sighs one of those histrionic and heavily put upon sighs and tells him, "You have no idea the effort it takes to keep all that noise on the other side."

As noise reduction sounds like the sort of thing the wall or the frame or the door or something or anything else must be doing, and not the work of the actual portrait, he pays it the same amount of heed he generally does when she complains. "The things I have to put up with!" She whines. He tries - but mostly fails - to look a little sympathetic ('Mione has been on his case to try to keep the portrait sweet), as he gives her the password and climbs through the portrait hole.

The next hint he has that something is wrong, is the common room is uncommonly empty for the hour. There are only three people in the room: Ginny and Ron, currently with their backs half turned to each other, scowling and arms crossed - mirroring one another in a way that screams 'family', although Harry sort of doubts they'd care to hear that - and Dean Thomas stood between them. Dean's hands are raised in a placating gesture neither of the Weasleys seems likely to notice or respond to just now, and off his imploring tone, he sounds like he's trying to convince one or the other of them of... something. Harry isn't too sure what, because Dean spots him, blanches, and thinks the better of whatever he was going to say.

"Harry. Mate. Uh, hi... Look, I swear, we weren't doing anything. I didn't..." And that's all he's able to manage before Ron registers Harry's presence and begins shouting at full blast.

"Nothing?! You call that nothing?!?" Ron's whole face is crimson and the colour is spreading down his neck where a couple of veins are raised and throbbing. It doesn't look healthy.

"Get stuffed, Ron!" Ginny shrieks - yeah, it's definitely shrieking, and Harry begins to understand the Fat Lady's whole ear covering thing, "I'll do whatever I bloody please..."

Dean looks panicked. "We weren't doing anything," he assures Harry again, begging him to understand, apparently giving up on convincing Ron of anything. Which... fair enough.

"...with whoever the hell I please..." Ginny continues, oblivious to Dean's objections. Harry can almost hear Hermione's 'whomever' over all the yelling, impressive in as much as she seems to have the good sense to be elsewhere for this. That's what comes of spending so much time together.

Ron's begun screeching about 'cheating' which is probably kind of rich given how he's been running around, to say nothing of the fact that Ginny isn't actually seeing anyone she could be cheating on, to the best of Harry's knowledge anyway...

"... and it's bloody well none of your business." Ginny's begun throwing the pillows from the nearest couch at her brother to punctuate her words. Dean, still caught in between them, is forced to bob and weave to avoid being hit, and Ron has few qualms misusing him as a human shield. Fortunately it bears a certain resemblance to evading Bludgers, and Dean's not half bad at that sort of thing.

"I can 'move on' if I want to..." She insists, and running out of cushions, she applies a Wingardium Leviosa to the ones on the other couch and flings them in her brother's direction as well.

The Spell definitely hasn't improved her aim, couch pillows aren't exactly aerodynamic, Dean's still forced to duck and weave, and as soon as she starts talking about 'moving on' his head begins comically swivelling from one to the next, as he keeps repeating "Just friends! Nothing more!" his hands placating away as best and rapidly as they can. It would have looked funny without all the ducking going on, as is...

Harry battles not to laugh, sensing it's not going to be welcome here, definitely not wanting either of the gingers' anger directed at him, and certainly not from both at once.

Merlin, no.

"And if I draw comfort from holding a friend's hand, that's up to me!"

"See? Just friends!" Dean latches onto the only word he'd been hoping to hear. Gin may have just saved him from a coronary.

"Especially as all of you lot seem utterly incapable of feeling, just sitting there stuck in time..." Fine, that was... a bit of a blow. What did Harry do to her?

With next to no warning, but then Harry had missed most of the build up to this, Gin levels her wand at her brother. Her Bat-Bogey Hex makes it past Ron's hastily cast Protego - he really should practise more - Dean only barely jumps clear. She then half climbs over the poor boy to give her brother a vicious shove that sends him sprawling and then storms from the Tower, slamming the Fat Lady's portrait so hard behind her, Harry can already picture her complaints.

"So, uh...? Hand holding, huh?" He asks Dean, casually making conversation as a couple of bats flutter towards them - forcing the boys to to duck in tandem - and then continue to make their way up to the ceiling.

"Hand holding," Dean confirms with a nod, eyeing Ron and trying to decide if it's safe to approach. It's unclear if he's more concerned with the bats or their roommate's temper, either or both giving good cause for caution. The only thing more pathetic than having a cauldron of bats slooshing out of his nose is having it happen while floundering on the floor, utterly unable to rise of his own volition. Harry breaks the impasse and moves to help him, Dean immediately following suit. The two of them are able to get Ron upright without getting hit by too many bats, and then, retreating to a safe distance, deploy Protegos of their own until the Hex passes.

It could take a while.

"No Finite for it?" Dean asks.

"Not that I know of," Harry answers. "She's fond enough of it, though, that that's probably worth looking into." He shakes his head as he watches Ron swatting at the bats.

That's unlikely to help the situation.

"Seriously, Harry, we were just talking. She was upset about Ron..."

"Before this happened?" He asks.

They look at each other and laugh. Yeah, this won't have helped. Ron really lives to put his foot in it.

"She just needed to vent," Dean explains with a shrug.

"Well on the plus side, I think she was able to blow off some steam," Harry allows. They sit there watching Ron for a while, all quiet save for the bats, their flapping, and Ron's continued moaning. "You know, Gin and I, we're not together anymore. We haven't been for months. If the two of you..." He shrugs. It's a neutral statement of fact, nothing more. He isn't trying to set them up, but he certainly isn't going to be an obstacle to anyone's happiness either.

"No, it's really not like that. We were talking, she was unhappy, and I tried to comfort her by taking her hand. End of. Merlin, with Ginny there's even odds she'll be annoyed by it, complain you're treating her like she's overly fragile or something and Jinx you for your troubles." Yeah, she could be prickly like that. Near as Harry could make out, it was a criterion that hinged mostly on whether or not she wanted whatever it was at that precise moment, which unfortunately was almost impossible to divine until you'd tried it out and faced the consequences. Frankly, that situation was only very marginally improved by breaking up and being nothing more than friends. It's almost a comfort to hear Dean's encountered the same issue. "Except Ron walked in like a heartbeat later, got the wrong end of the wand, decided it was 'romantic' and 'how very dare she'," Harry winces, because he can envision her response to that as clearly as if he'd been there; Ron can be such a plank, "and, Avada Kedavra! It's 2nd May all over again.

"You know how he gets. You know how she gets."

Harry looks around the otherwise empty common room and chuckles. The whole House knows how the Weasleys get. There were plenty of good reasons everyone else had peeled out of there. Say what you like about their academic performances, but the Gryffindors were capable of learning from experience.

He's glad Ginny had Dean to talk to. He hopes it helped. Well, before Ron got in there and ruined things, that is. It's weird sometimes, recognising she has friendships of her own. Just how independent of the three of them she sometimes is... But yeah, it seems to help her cope. That's all any of them were trying to do, really. Cope.

The stream of bats emerging from Ron's nose starts abating, and Dean suddenly realises that means they'd be capable of resuming their... conversation. With Ron, especially these days, it's something of a gamble how reasonable he's likely to be. Dean turns to Harry and, not entirely credibly, tells him he had work he still needed to do in the library before dinner. He hurries to the stairs, checks to make sure the coast is clear, and then Accios some books and - purely coincidentally, Harry is sure - beats a hasty retreat to the one place Ron can't continue to berate him, even if he so chooses.

"Are you alright?" Harry asks when it looks like Ron might finally be able to answer.

"Bloody hell," his friend groans, which Harry will just take to be a 'yes' then, cheers.

"How can you just give her a pass like that?" Ron finally asks, bent over and wringing for breath. He keeps rubbing his throbbing and deeply crimson nose. "It's bad enough... Carrying on like that... But with someone else!" It's not exactly coherent, but it's enough to go off that Harry can identify the argument. It will have been some version or another of the 'how dare there be life after Fred's death' row, at a guess, with a side portion of that sin being compounded by whichever person not being Harry. Well it's too late for that now. It's just another neutral observation coming from Harry, just a statement of facts: that ship has sailed. He doesn't blame Ron for his part in ending his relationship with Ginny the way she does. For one thing, Harry doesn't want to jeopardise their friendship over something as immaterial as apportionment of blame, and for another, on a purely subconscious level, he's still unwilling to entertain thoughts that might reveal the extent to which he'd allowed Ron to interfere in their relationship. Those hadn't been amongst his best moments.

As to Ron's recriminations, though, he's really not sure what he should have said or done differently here, and that much is clear just from looking at him. It leaves Ron feeling dissatisfied that Harry didn't have his back in this more, especially as Ron was basically looking out for him, wasn't he? It's not long before the ginger decides he needs to be elsewhere.

He makes noises about having to head for the library, too, except Harry can't help noticing that, unlike Dean, Ron doesn't feel the need to gather any study aids for the undertaking.

Harry has some cause to wonder if his roommate will actually put in an appearance in the library, even more so, because, of all the rooms in the castle, it's the only one with the roommate in it with whom Ron had just been fighting. Yeah. Wherever Ron had got off to Friday night or yesterday afternoon - and with whomever - seems a more likely destination.

Harry's reading in the common room, still very empty and with the cushions haphazardly piled on the couches - the elves will sort it later - when Hermione returns. She's fresh from the library, and Harry can't quite resist checking, "Did you happen to see Ron there when you left?" Her 'no' doesn't mean he wasn't there, of course, but still...

"Dean came in a while ago, though, if you're looking for your roommates." 'Mione's observant. Harry mentally increases the odds that Ron is elsewhere.

"What happened here?" She asks, looking around and surveying the residual mess.

"Gin took the expression 'throw pillows' a bit too literally," he replies with a chuckle. 'Mione joins him on the squashy couch as he fills her in on the siblings' argument. Honestly her buttons and Ginny's aren't so very different. Gin'd be gratified to see 'Mione cringes in all the same places.

"Do you think she's right? Do you think we're stuck?" He asks her when he's finished.

She pauses to consider for a moment, weighing her words, trying to gauge if what she says is likely to cause hurt, and only once she's sure it won't does she ask, "How was it when you first entered the common room earlier? That moment when you figured out what Ron was implying, that there was something going on between Ginny and Dean, and before you were certain there wasn't? Were you jealous?"

"No," he seems taken aback by the suggestion. Hermione just shrugs, considering the question at least partially answered with that, but she gives him the space to work it through and catch up.

He sits there for a few minutes puzzling through why even the thought of Ginny and Dean as a possibility, and he trusted both of them that it had all been completely innocent, doesn't bother him and realises with a start that he's moved on. Telling Dean he wasn't standing in their way should have told him that, but sometimes you just need to formulate things a certain way to fully understand them. He wasn't being especially chivalrous, or generous or kind with his non-offer; he'd simply gotten over their relationship. He's not sure when that particular wound healed. Maybe some time over the summer, when they'd had to focus so much of their attention on securing Professor Snape's and Malfoy's freedom. He'd found it nearly impossible to do that and wallow at the same time. Not to suggest Ron had wallowed... Except maybe he had, some. And even Ginny had, too quick to argue for what she was apt to define as her own victimisation, both siblings lacking some scale of reference, Harry couldn't help feeling. In a very real fashion, work on the trials had kept him grounded.

"I think it's because for Ginny, 'moving on' is more about heading towards someone as opposed to getting over something," Harry tries to explain it, mostly for himself, "and I sort of borrowed her definition."

Hermione shakes her head, "You don't need to throw yourself into a relationship, or two," Harry has the sense she might be thinking of Ron, but shouldn't like to ask, "to move on. You're where you need to be. If there's no one you're interested in, what would be the point of chasing after something to prove you're over something else?" Well if she isn't thinking of Ron, Harry certainly is. "If anything, that kind of behaviour speaks to the opposite.

"Ginny's right that you, we shouldn't be artificially holding ourselves back. It's okay to move on, but what you're doing is healthy, Harry. You paused, you healed, and when the right person comes along, you'll be open for more. You'll be capable of more. And you have a lot to offer."

She gives his hand a squeeze in emphasis, which is when he notices she must've taken it at some point. He squeezes hers back and leans his head against hers, she's small enough that she can sort of tuck in at his side, and the friends sit there, quietly enjoying each other's proximity for a little while. It's nice, in a way that just a year or two before he wouldn't have been able to articulate, he needs this. He misses it, too, and he greatly appreciates the ease of the affection between them. He thinks back to Dean's remark about Ginny - she's entitled to her boundaries, everyone is, and it's not like she exists to see anyone else's needs met - but that doesn't mean his aren't better fulfilled by what falls within other people's limits, or that he doesn't harmonise with them more as a whole.

It's nice not walking on eggshells.

It's definitely not that he wants anything more from Hermione than this, that would be really weird, but he does appreciate what they have. 'Mione is a constant, as is her affection. Really, the only time she withdraws is when Ron is around...

Yeah...

Harry's fuzzy, quite, on the details. He doesn't know what transpired between her and Ron last October while they were camping, he just knows that after he and Ron had rowed, Ron had laid into 'Mione as well before he left. Abandoned them. Harry had a tendency to try to soften the sound of it, but that kind of refusal to face facts most often didn't do any of them any favours. Well it made things easier when you were just trying to get along with an increasingly volatile roommate, but... Harry sort of gets that at various points, both 'Mione and Gin had felt he'd let them down by refusing to acknowledge the score with Ron. They probably have a point, especially when those two agree.

Harry can guess that jealousy played a role - a much bigger role - in 'Mione's argument with Ron than she'd let on. That he'd made accusations she hadn't been willing to share. And sure, it can be awkward talking about stuff like that between friends, but that probably wasn't it. Or not all of it. She's cautious. Deep down Harry has the sense she worries if she criticises Ron, if push came to shove, Harry'd take the ginger's side. He likes to think that isn't the case, not anymore, that it's not that simple, and he's getting better at choosing the side that's right. He's kind of a work in progress, though, so who knows?

Well the first step is probably vocalising some of that, reassuring her of his friendship, his support... Stuff like that.

"You have a lot to offer, too, y'know, if you decided to move on, and it, uh, it might be time? It's not just true for me and Gin." Harry's courage isn't quite sufficient to mention Ron, who almost definitely is seeing a witch or two. Well there's no point rubbing salt in 'Mione's wounds, if there are still wounds that is, and, yeah, he doesn't care to explore any of the tins of worms it might open up. He's rather had his fill of arguments, realised or merely potential, today.

Still, it gets the point across, he thinks.

Her brow furrows, thinking, and at a guess, she's considering his statement and not how to phrase her answer. It's funny, because for someone who thinks so much, he can't believe she wouldn't have thought about this before.

"I can't imagine doing so wouldn't send Ron into even more of a tailspin," she finally answers. "I don't know that he can take any more right now."

Harry's first impulse is to point out she and Ron aren't a couple, and very likely won't be again... Except that doesn't mean jealousy wouldn't be an issue. Evidently that detail hadn't stopped Ron last autumn, after all. They obviously hadn't been anything remotely like a couple then. And maybe the fact Ron was seeing other girls now... Except, Harry still doesn't want to discuss that, and really, Ron's dating Lavender hadn't kept him from having problems with 'Mione sixth year either... And he's definitely not in a good place, so, yeah, she has a point there.

Harry thinks for a moment about his argument with Ron yesterday. How just the invocation of George's precarious mental well-being had left him feeling he couldn't report the Mischief Masks to Professor McGonagall, that he couldn't just do what he felt was right, that his hands were somehow tied... How much more restricting must it be to have to worry about your actions harming one of your best friends?

He gives 'Mione's hand a squeeze, and then waits quietly until the lengthy pause draws her gaze and he's sure he has her full attention. Looking her straight in the eyes and with all the sincerity he can muster, he tells her, "You can't just live your life to suit Ron."

Hermione's first impulse is to object, because she isn't. Not really. Probably. She'd have kept 'dating' him were that the case, so no. Except there are still plenty of things she avoids doing or saying in his presence, so it's obviously restraining her some... It feels a little insulting for Harry to suggest she modifies her behaviour too much for Ron's sake, except here again, she's just established she does... So, yes, he may have something by way of a point here.

Hermione doesn't have a lot of people in her life with whom she'd be tempted to share her feelings. Her thoughts, sure, anyone remotely stationary and at the drop of a hat, but feelings? Ginny was problematic for a variety of reasons. The seventh year had relationship issues of her own that made things complicated, especially as these days Hermione, try as she might, remained at least slightly biased in Harry's favour. Ginny for her part was far from neutral as far as Ron went, although less reliable in her own bias. Sometimes that meant she lobbied too strongly against her brother; but occasionally she'd champion his interests with an equally unfounded vigour. Either way it wasn't necessarily the advice the situation warranted, and the inconsistency only made the partiality more difficult to account for.

Something that weighed on Hermione more of late, however, was the time she'd confided in Ginny about a kiss she and Viktor had shared, only to have Ginny reveal it to Ron later in the heat of an argument. At the time, early sixth year, she and Ron had been very close to starting a - romantic - relationship, Hermione still feels quite sure of it. Ginny had brandished the entrusted information like a cudgel, and while it was entirely Ron's fault that he was so overly sensitive that it had sent him scuttling into Lavender's waiting claws, Hermione remains certain that Ginny betraying her confidence how and when she had had ultimately kept them from becoming a item before the war. With a year and a half of a relationship behind them, who knows, they might have been in a position to weather Fred's death. As was... It's not that she wants a relationship with Ron, or that by now she's even remotely convinced they'd have been good for each other, but that degree of interference, that decision most definitely wasn't Ginny's to take, and certainly not in a fit of pique.

Fundamentally, Hermione doesn't trust her not to abuse anything she might wish to share anymore.

It's been somewhat isolating, but more crucially, in the absence of 'discussion' - which might be an overinflated expression for a good chinwag - it meant Hermione, without the need to formulate certain things, hadn't really had call to think about them either.

So for the first time she closes her eyes and just considers what it would be like if Ron weren't in her life, if she were free to do as she pleased... Harry watches the transformation, her initial resistance, her final surrender. There's a soft pink to 'Mione's cheeks when she answers.

"Borrowing Ginny's understanding of 'moving on', as I believe that's what you mean here," she smirks slightly, right as usual, "there's nowhere really I'd want to move on to, so the point is moot."

Harry has a flash of guilt that he'd basically warned Viktor off at Bill's wedding, wondering fleetingly if he needs to dispatch some owls to rectify that score. Hmm... The pink of her cheeks has darkened just a touch, though. It's perceptible enough that Harry, paying close attention to that sort of thing for once, notices, and so he pries, just a little.

"No one at all who interests you?" He bores, simultaneously having trouble coming up with anyone - other than Viktor, that is - who would suit her. Well except maybe Malfoy, but then there's a lot of baggage there, and he's pretty much the walking wounded himself...

"No one who'd reciprocate," and she's definitely blushing now, tacitly admitting at least some interest on her part. Curiouser and curiouser.

Harry gives her an appraising look, but he won't push. She'll tell him when she's ready. After last year, he doesn't doubt her friendship for a minute. Still, it gets him thinking.

It might be driven in part by a desire not to feel guilty for putting the kibosh on Viktor's interest - yeah, he really doesn't need more guilt in his life, cheers - but as he falls asleep that night, his thoughts will circle back to Malfoy, and he really is the only appropriate match...

No accounting for taste.

The question will remain: what to do about it?

Written with oodles of love for lostangelsoul3.

"soaring part 8" by gingerbred

chapter 08 fighting

Previously:

Monday, 14 September, 1998

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