The Book of Morgan Le Fey

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The talk of the school that Tuesday was of nothing but the escaped Death Eaters. The first years seemed to be the only students who weren't all that interested in it, perhaps because they were too young understand the danger, and in any case, they hadn't been at Hogwarts the past two years, when so many terrible things (most of them to Harry) had happened.

Hermione would not speak to Ron. Only yesterday Ron would have felt slighted, but today, seeing the look of fear on Hermione's face and remembering her reaction to Dolohov's photo, he felt nothing but worry for her. And, as the day went on, Ron noticed that Hermione wasn't just refusing to talk to him, but to pretty much everyone. For the first time in his memory Hermione did not raise her hand in lessons, even though Ron was quite sure she knew every question posed by the teachers. By the time they got to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, Hermione had barely said two words in class at all, except during Charms, to utter incantations.

The class quieted down and Bill stood up.

'I'm sure all of you have heard the news this morning,' he said in a grave voice. 'Before any of you start to panic, let me assure you that Hogwarts is the safest place you all could be right now. That said, I think it's time we focused on taking our defensive practice to the next level. Today we start on the Patronus charm. Most of you have some experience with this but I want it to become second nature to all of you. It's one thing to cast a fully formed Patronus in a classroom; something else to do it when you're being chased by Dementors.'

The lesson was the most grueling yet. Bill had brought several boggarts with him, and Harry was asked to assist. Malfoy glared daggers at Harry through the whole class. By the end of the lesson Ron-covered in sweat and breathing hard from the exertions of working the charm over and over again- produced a fully formed Patronus, a bear. He was so pleased with himself that he couldn't keep himself from shouting when the bear finally appeared out of the end of his wand. It opened its mouth and gave a silent roar, then gamboled away and vanished into a silver mist.

'Wow,' said Neville, impressed (his Patronus was a rabbit). 'How'd you get that one, Ron?'

'Dunno,' said Ron, himself a bit confused. He wasn't aware of having any special affection for bears that he could remember.

'Maybe you're thinking about your teddy bear,' Harry joked. 'You know, the one Fred turned into a big spider.'

'That's not funny,' said Ron, shuddering at the thought.

With Quidditch practices, lessons and prefect duties, Ron's days were so full that by the end of the evening he barely had the energy for homework. The tension that had filled the school since the escape of the Death Eaters hadn't helped. Several students had, in a kind of panic, taken to accidentally setting off hexes and jinxes in the hallways, inadvertently hitting other students. Madam Pomfrey declared on several occasions that she had never seen the hospital wing so busy for so many stupid reasons.

On top of this, Ron was stumped about what to get Hermione for her birthday. She still wasn't talking to him, but lately she had been avoiding Harry and Ginny as well. Whenever Harry questioned her, she would answer that she had been in the library. Ron wondered if in fact she was spending more time with Eddie Carmichael, but scratched that idea almost at once. Every time Hermione had been around Carmichael she had a kind of happy glow around her, but all week she had been tense and silent, strung so tightly, Ron thought, that if she were a rubber band she'd snap.

Ginny gave up on the idea of a party. 'She's a bit too weirded out by the Death Eater thing, I think. But I still think we should have something quiet and small, you know. Informal.'

'Yeah, but what do I get her?' Ron asked Ginny for what had to be the fifteenth time.

'Get her something she'll really like,' was always the answer.

'That's helpful,' said Ron. Two days before Hermione's birthday Ron was still without a gift, when suddenly it hit him.

Ron pulled Dean Thomas aside after their Herbology lesson. 'Dean, you think you can help me out?'

'What's up?' Dean asked, looking slightly apprehensive, most likely wondering if Ron was going to grill him about dating his younger sister.

'Well, uh, I don't know how to get Hermione's birthday present,' Ron said, feeling his face get very hot.

Dean smirked. Ron hurried on. 'That is, I know what I want to get her but not where to get it. Your dad, he owns a bookshop, yeah?'

'Yeah,' said Dean. 'Rare books, used books. That sort of thing. The shop's in London.'

'Right,' said Ron, wishing Dean would stop smirking at him. 'So, uh, would this shop have any Shakespit stuff?'

'Shakespeare?' Dean said. 'Sure. Tons of that stuff. You were thinking of the sonnets?'

'The what?'

'The sonnets,' Dean repeated. 'Bunch of poems he wrote. Most of them are about love and stuff. They're okay. Hermione's into Shakespeare?'

'Yeah, big time,' said Ron. 'You think she'd like a book of those sod-its?'

'Sonnets,' Dean said, laughing. 'Yeah, she might. But you'd want to get her a good one. You know, leather-bound edition or something like that. You want me to owl my dad?'

'Yeah,' said Ron, relieved. 'Yeah. But...but tell him...nothing too expensive. You know.'

Dean nodded. 'Right. I'll do it now.'

'Thanks,' said Ron, suddenly not quite so put out that Dean was dating and probably snogging his little sister.

'Hey, what'd you want with Dean?' Ginny asked suspiciously a moment later.

'What?' Ron asked. 'Oh, he's just helping me get a gift for Hermione.'

'Uh huh,' said Ginny. 'You promise you haven't been grilling him about me? Not getting all big brother protective on me, are you?'

'I promise,' said Ron. 'But he'd better watch himself all the same.'

'Right,' said Ginny sarcastically. 'What fun, having TWO big brothers around.'

Hermione's birthday arrived on a cold, wet Saturday. Dean's father had come through for Ron, sending him a rather small but beautifully bound leather edition of Shakespeare sonnets. Ron put several Galleons in a bag and sent Pigwidgeon-who was thrilled to finally have a delivery-off to London.

Ron flipped through the book and read a few of the poems; he quickly discerned they all had fourteen lines and a particular rhyming pattern. But the words themselves made little sense to him.

'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,' he read uncomprehendingly. He flipped through the pages again. 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.' And again.

'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

'Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

'Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.'

That one, he decided wasn't so bad. At least it made a bit more sense. He started to wrap the book when he remembered that Hermione still wasn't talking to him. Maybe he needed to write a note or something.

He opened the front cover of the book, pulled out his quill and ink pot, and sat down to write. After fifteen minutes of doing nothing but stare at the blank cover page, he gave up trying to be eloquent and simply wrote:

Happy Birthday, Hermione. I'm sorry. Love, Ron.

He wrapped the book-badly- in plain brown paper and wrote her name on it.

Hermione wasn't at breakfast when Ron and Harry went down to the Great Hall. Ginny announced, in a rather nervous voice, that Hermione was in the library going over study schedules with Eddie Carmichael. Ron squashed another banana upon hearing this and had a powerful urge to run back to his dorm room and tear up the book he'd bought for Hermione, but instead he sat rigid as a board and forced himself to eat his eggs. Just because she's with Carmichael doesn't mean she's WITH Carmichael, he told himself over and over again.

By lunchtime the weather had turned particularly nasty. Rain pounded against the windows and thunder and lightning shook the curtains. Ron and Harry were sitting in the common room, absently doing homework, when Ginny entered, followed by Dobby the house-elf.

'Dobby!' said Harry. 'What are you doing here?'

'Dobby comes to bring Hermione her cake, Harry Potter, sir!' Dobby squeaked. He was wearing about a dozen of Hermione's knit elf-hats, an ugly tie and an equally awful pair of shorts and four pairs of Hermione's elf socks. In his hands was a huge platter with a luridly decorated cake that read HAPPEE BERTHDAI HERMONNIE.

'Oh, she'll...she'll love that,' Harry said, grinning at Ron.

'Dobby has decorations, too, Harry Potter, sir!' Dobby said gleefully, dancing around. The cake wobbled dangerously.

'Maybe you should put that down first,' Harry suggested, pointing to the coffee table in front of the fire.

'Hey, Dobby,' said Ron, smiling.

'Dobby is pleased to see Mr. Wheezy,' said Dobby, bowing low so that his hats touched the floor. In the next instant Dobby was hanging up banners and passing out birthday hats and noise-makers.

'Are you responsible for this?' Harry asked Ginny, as Dobby sung to himself (Ron was sure it sounded like 'Wheezy is Our King').

'I guess,' Ginny said, watching Dobby with a mixture of awe and horror. 'I mean, all I said was I needed a cake for Hermione's birthday. He went sort of mad with all this other stuff.'

'We'll take it down when he leaves,' Harry muttered, as Dobby finished hanging the last banner--it, too, was horribly mispelled--and bowing low again.

'Uh, thanks, Dobby,' said Harry.

'You is welcome, Harry Potter, sir!' Dobby squealed. 'And Miss and Mr. Wheezies! Dobby likes to do nice things for the friends of Harry Potter and the Wheezies! But Dobby must get back to the kitchens. Please give this to Hermione for Dobby!' He held out a pair of huge ugly, mismatched socks.

'Sure thing,' said Harry, grinning, and Dobby danced out of the common room, humming to himself.

'Right, so, uh, let's get this stuff tamed down a bit,' Harry suggested, and the three of them quickly tore down most of Dobby's decorations (Ron thought the ones with Harry's image on them singing an off-key Happy Birthday were especially bad) and threw them into the fire.

Ron raced upstairs to fetch his and Harry's presents for Hermione and were just returning downstairs when they heard someone crawling through the portrait hole. Ron put his present behind his back as Hermione came into the common room.

'Oh!' she said, looking surprised.

'Happy Birthday!' Ginny and Harry yelled. Ron meant to yell, too, but his throat seemed to have stopped working.

Hermione's hair had curled in the humid weather, and her face was slightly flushed, her eyes bright. She looked tired, disheveled and vulnerable, but prettier than Ron had ever remembered. He realized that he preferred her hair when it was curly. He wasn't sure why this was or why looking at her made it difficult to talk.

Hermione smiled weakly at all of them, but gave Ron a kind of nervous glance.

'Thanks,' she said uncertainly.

'Come on,' Ginny said, a bit too heartily. 'Blow out your candles and eat some cake and open your presents.'

'Right,' she said, forcing a smile. She headed over to the coffee table where Ginny had arranged the cake-and sixteen flaming candles in it.

Hermione smiled--a real smile this time--and leaned over the cake, one hand holding her hair back.

'Make a wish,' Ron blurted, not knowing how or why he said that.

She looked up at him coolly for a moment, and Ron swallowed. Then she gave a great puff of air and blew out the candles in one.

Ginny and Harry clapped. Ginny began to cut the cake and Harry handed her a neatly wrapped, rather large package. Ron felt his stomach clench. Harry's gift, whatever it was, almost certainly was better than Ron's. It would be nicer, newer, shinier, more expensive. Ron looked down glumly at his small package and immediately wished he wasn't even in the room. He wasn't sure he wanted to watch Hermione open up a glorious present from Harry.

'Oh, Harry, thanks so much!' Hermione said, sounding happy for the first time in days. 'This is wonderful.' She was holding a large, leatherbound book with gold pages. There was no title on the cover, but on the spine was the legend THE GREAT WITCHES OF EARLY BRITANNIA.

Hermione opened the book eagerly. 'It starts here with Morgan Le Fey,' she said, sounding thrilled. 'She was the most fascinating witch in the world, I think. Well, at least the most fascinating of the early English witches, anyway. Did you know she was King Arthur's half-sister?'

'I'm glad you like it,' Harry said, smiling. Ron's stomach clenched painfully again as Hermione put the book down and leapt up from the couch to hug Harry.

'I love it, thanks!'

She opened Ginny's gift, which was a very simple silver bracelet with a single charm on it, an 'H'. 'You can add charms if you want,' said Ginny, as Hermione hugged her in turn.

'Ron, your turn,' Ginny said. Ron seemed to snap out of a reverie.

'Oh, right,' he said, handing over his package. It was so badly wrapped that his ears went pink. 'Uh, sorry about the wrapping.'

Hermione looked at him, uncertain, it seemed, as to whether to accept the gift or not. Considering they hadn't said a word to one another since their last row, this was to be expected, but then Ron had a fleeting, horrible vision of her yelling at him and throwing his gift into the fire.

Instead, she took it from him, very slowly, her eyes never leaving his face. He swallowed.

'Thanks,' she said shortly, and tore open the brown paper.

For several moments there was silence. Hermione stared at the book-which looked pathetically tiny and feeble compared to Harry's book on witches-and then opened the front cover and read the brief note there.

She looked up at him with a thin film of tears in her eyes.

'Where did you get this?' she asked.

'Dean,' Ron mumbled. 'Dean Thomas. His parents are Muggles, you know. His dad owns this book shop in London, they sell rare books and stuff--'

But Ron felt his voice stop and his throat close, for Hermione had closed the distance between them and hugged him very tightly.

'Thank you,' she said softly, and Ron heard her sniff.

Ron looked at Harry and Ginny, who were both smiling wryly. Bewildered, he slowly put his arms around Hermione.

'You, uh, like it, then?' Ron asked, trying not to look at Harry and Ginny, who were both grinning broadly.

'I love it,' she said, and she gave a short laugh. 'It's perfect.' She pulled back from him slightly and kissed him on the cheek. 'Thank you,' she said again, stepping back from him.

Ron swallowed, his mouth so dry he wasn't sure he would ever be able to talk properly again.

'You're welcome,' he croaked.

She was smiling radiantly at him, her eyes still filmed with tears, a single tear escaping down her cheek. Ron, whose face was on fire, had the overwhelming urge to brush the tear away with his hand, but he seemed frozen to the spot.

'So, who wants cake?' Ginny asked, a bit too loudly.

'I do,' Harry said, also a bit too loudly.

'Oh, I'd love some!' said Hermione, wiping away the tear and turning to look at her luridly decorated cake.

'Uh, yeah,' said Ron, shaking his head, his face still hot. 'I'll take some.'