Rainbow Fragments

Periwinkle Blue

Ron stood in the crowd awaiting entrance into the Yule Ball with Harry, Padma and Parvati. Conversations raged around him about all manner of topics, but the young redhead was unable to concentrate on any of them, preoccupied as he was with scanning the crowd for a certain bushy haired brunette. "Where's Hermione?" he asked for the hundredth time that evening.

Padma's brow creased with disapproval. She had become more and more unhappy each time Ron had mentioned Hermione, but Ron didn't care. He had surveyed the crowd twice now, sure that he had not missed a single person, and yet he still had not found Hermione. He really felt that he ought to apologise to her for his behaviour earlier, he had been out of line. But how was he supposed to apologise to her if he couldn't even find her?

He was struck by the idea that perhaps she had been stood up by her magnificent date, the scumbag, and was hiding up in her room, and was on the point of getting up to go and check when Professor McGonagall called, "Champions over here, please!"

"See you later," Harry muttered to them with something of a grimace, before he and Parvati walked over to join the other Champions.

All attention in the Entrance Hall turned to the small huddle created by Professor McGonagall, Cedric, Fleur, Harry, Krum and their dates. Ron recognised Parvati, of course, and could also see Davies, the Ravenclaw Quiddich captain, and Cho Chang, the Ravenclaw Seeker, but what he couldn't work out was-

"Who's that with Krum?" a fifth-year Hufflepuff girl asked nearby. Around her many other people, Ron included, were asking or thinking the same thing. Gradually the answer filtered back, as points of universal interest are wont to do.

"It's Hermione Granger!" exclaimed an excitable Hufflepuff fourth-year; Fawcett, Ron thought her name was.

"No it's not!" Ron exclaimed, laughing. "It can't be! Look, it's-" Ron paused and looked closer at the girl, who was wearing very pretty periwinkle blue robes. "Merlin," he said under his breath, "it is her. What's she done to her hair?" he asked wonderingly.

But his sense of wonder was soon overcome, when a small voice at the back of his head piped up, 'So that's why she wouldn't tell you. She found someone so much better than you that it was worth betraying her best friends for.'

'Betraying?' the still rational part of his brain questioned. 'They're just going to a dance together.'

'She's the smartest witch in the school,' the suspicious other voice argued. 'He's probably getting her to help him with the egg. Against Harry.'

This continued on for some time; with the small, suspicious voice getting gradually louder and more convincing, until the rational voice finally gave up entirely.

At this point, Padma tapped him on the shoulder. "What?" he exclaimed irritably.

She raised one haughty eyebrow at him and said, in condescending tones, "We're supposed to be going in now."

This, of course, involved walking past the Champions and, more importantly, their partners. Ron, in no mood to put up with a traitorous best friend and the part-Veela he had made a total fool of himself over, stalked past the lot of them without saying a word.

Ron sulked through dinner, seeing Hermione at the top table flirting away with Krum, and then, although he told himself that he was ignoring her, found himself staring irresistibly at her throughout the Champions' opening dance.

As he watched her twirl prettily in Krum's arms, the suspicious voice from earlier in the evening picked up its tirade again, chanting phrases like, 'Betrayer', 'Could have told us if she had nothing to hide', 'Scarlet Woman' and 'Fraternising with the enemy'. His vision was filled with periwinkle blue, and his head was filled with accusations, and just as the final note on the Weird Sisters' first song was struck the crescendo of these accusations was reached with the blistering denunciations fading to the words, 'That should have been YOU!'

The first dance finished, and Harry and Parvati headed over to them, Parvati looking rather disappointed to have left the dance floor.

"How's it going?" Harry asked as he sat down. Ron only dimly registered the question over the now quieter but no less persistent accusations running through his mind, and did not answer, his glare still focused on Hermione's periwinkle blue dress robes, which lay just within his line of sight.

At the end of the second song, the periwinkle robes moved closer, filling up Ron's sight as Hermione came over to join them. Ron resolutely ignored her as she made some comment about the heat, but when he heard her casually mention her date, and noted the pleased tone in her voice, a sudden roaring filled his ears, and he asked, scathingly, "Viktor? Hasn't he asked you to call him Vicky yet?"

Then, before he could stop himself, he had launched into a tirade closely resembling that which had been coursing through his head earlier in the evening. Hermione got in a few good shots of her own early in the argument, some distant part of him noted, but Ron was well past reason by this stage, and soon was glaring at the hem of her periwinkle robes as she stormed off into the crowd, satisfied with himself that he had at least won the argument.

"Are you going to ask me to dance at all?" Padma asked soon after the argument had finished.

"No," answered Ron shortly, angry at her for no reason that he could fathom. He didn't even care when she stalked off to join her sister and the Beauxbatons boy, either, and in truth had almost forgotten that she was supposed to be his date.

What he couldn't forget, though, was the shocked and upset expressions that had flitted across Hermione's face as they argued. He was on the point of going to find her and apologise when Krum came up to them and asked, "Vare is Herm-own-ninny?"

At the sound of his rival's voice, all of Ron's anger at Hermione came flooding back, and all desire to apologise to her was lost, as he answered, "No idea. Lost her, have you?"

He then sank back into his inner monologue, barely registering Krum's response of, "Vell, if you see her, tell her I haff drinks," and not even caring when Percy came and sat down by them.

Ron was glaring in the direction of the dance floor while Harry was feigning an interest in Percy's discussion with Ludo Bagman, so Ron saw Hermione headed back towards them before Harry possibly could and, unwilling to participate in another confrontation with the traitorous wench - this being an expression that he was particularly proud of himself for coming up with - he suggested that he and Harry go for a walk, offering Percy as an explanation.

Ron continued his silent sulk until Snape tried to get them into trouble, as per usual, and then, exasperated by the world by this stage, snapped a reply at him, although his anger had its origins elsewhere. Once they had continued down the path a while, Ron suggested questions at Harry, as was expected, but his heart wasn't in it.

Ron was only nearly pulled out of his selfish sulk by Hagrid's revelation to Madame Maxime, concern for his friends momentarily overwhelming his own concerns. But even during the long discussion with Harry about the precise nature of giants, every so often Ron would catch a glimpse of periwinkle fabric out of the corner of his eye, generally in the same glimpse as the midnight blue of Krum's robes, and each time he did, he felt the strong urge to break something, preferably Krum's legs.

When midnight came, Ron got up to walk back to the dormitory with no regret about leaving the ball behind. It had been a less than pleasant evening, to say the least. In the Entrance Hall, Hermione swept past Ron and Harry without saying a word. 'What's she got to be upset about?' Ron asked himself as he hurried to catch up with her, leaving Harry behind to talk to Cedric Diggory. As he did so, a second part of himself piped up, 'What has she got to be upset about? Well, you did yell at her in front of the entire school, call her a traitor and ruin her date. Maybe you should apologise to her.'

It was with this thought in mind that, once he and Hermione had entered the Common Room, Ron called out, "Hermione, wait. Can we talk?"

Hermione turned around to face him, her manner still cold, and shrugged. "That depends on what you have to say, I suppose, Ronald."

Ron had the decency to look shamefaced as he said, "I just wanted to - to apologise, for the way I acted tonight. I shouldn't have yelled at you, and I shouldn't have tried to ruin your date."

Hermione relented then, and smiled at him. "Thank you for apologising, Ron. I'm glad you're not still mad at me. And...well, Viktor's a nice guy, but it's nice to know that you would have defended me if he wasn't."

The less-than-perfect evening could have ended perfectly, Ron would later realise, if he and Hermione had left on this note. Instead, Ron continued on, saying, "It just confuses me, is all, that you chose to go with him, when you say you don't care about his fame, and I don't see why else you'd say yes. I know you said he's a nice guy," he said when Hermione opened her mouth to speak, "but there are plenty of nice guys right here at Hogwarts. Couldn't you have gone with one of them? Instead, you chose to go with someone who you just met, and who's in direct competition with one of your best friends."

Hermione reacted to this last remark as a slap in the face. Drawing herself up to her full, though not particularly intimidating, height she took a step towards him and asked, in a dangerously quiet voice, "What possible business is it of yours who I choose to go out with?"

"You're supposed to be my friend!" Ron exclaimed. "I was merely suggesting that Vicky wasn't the right choice for you!"

"Don't call him Vicky!" Hermione yelled back at him. "And at least I didn't spend the whole night staring pathetically at someone else's date, and completely ignore my own!"

"That was uncalled for!"

"Well," yelled Hermione as Harry entered the Common Room behind her, "if you don't like it, you know what the solution is, don't you?"

"Oh yeah?" Ron yelled back. "What's that?"

"Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!" With this parting remark, Hermione turned on her heel and ran up the girls' staircase.

Ron watched her periwinkle blue hem disappear from view before turning to Harry and, feeling as though Hermione had physically slapped him, spluttered, "Well, well - that just proves - completely missed the point..."

Still spluttering, and still unsure exactly why he was so mad at Hermione, Ron retreated upstairs. When he had shut the curtains that separated his bed from the rest in the dorm, Ron's eyes fell upon a small figurine on his bedside table. Feeling another sudden bust of rage, he seized up the Krum figurine and snapped off both its arms. He felt a strange release at this, and was then able to go about getting ready for bed in his normal manner.

Ron would never admit it to anyone, and his manner the next day would positively contradict the fact, but his dreams that night were filled with the image of a beautiful brunette girl, dancing in his arms, wearing floaty robes of the purest periwinkle blue.