Adjudication

Of Ferns and Hamburgers

"Legilimens."

The sensation of the spell's tendrils snaking into his brain was always discomfiting; it made him want to simultaneously gag and babble his secrets. After six years with the Ministry, he'd still not become accustomed to the feeling. In lieu of vomiting, he closed his eyes and concentrated on protecting his innermost private thoughts, thoughts that were irrelevant and wholly inapplicable to the current situation, thinking instead of warmth and Quidditch, the Burrow, Hermione and Harry, the inside of the red and gold bed canopies way back when at Hogwarts . . . Shite, he thought, wincing slightly. Shouldn't have thought of bed curtains. Susan always managed to bust him for something; he'd begun to reckon she knew more about his inner workings than anyone else on the face of the planet. He blushed pre-emptively.

The corner of Susan's mouth lifted. "Interesting," she commented mildly. "Did you ever tell Hermione about that?"

"Forget it, Bones," Ron said, the tips of his ears warming.

"Who are you here for today?" she asked briskly, all business again.

"Pansy Parkinson."

"Draco Malfoy was killed yesterday. I'm sure you've heard." Susan circled him, concentrating, touching the tip of her wand to his head periodically, lifting his hair away from his temple with a flutter. "Throat slit, and then gutted like a pig. He was dead before he hit the floor, though."

"Good." Ron allowed himself to wallow in savage bitterness for several moments before reclaiming his sense of propriety, his Gryffindor nobleness kicking in after a minor split-second delay. "It's good he wasn't made to suffer, that is," he lied, averting his eyes.

Susan tutted neutrally. "Such sporting sentiments, Ron. I suppose you've also heard it was Anthony Goldstein who did it."

"Yeah," he said. "I always knew there was something dodgy about that Goldstein bloke." He rubbed at the back of his neck after her wand's tip tickled him there. "He was a crap prefect. Always paying the younger prefects to do his rounds for him, did you know? Remember that time Ernie accidentally let the Lethifold loose in the castle during Defence?" Ron snorted. "Goldstein didn't even know the emergency evacuation management plan! He ended up whinging to Hermione about how her evacuation plans were shite."

"I do remember, yes. Hannah was very upset by that." Susan passed her wand over his face, concentrating. "She refused to speak to Ernie for a month afterward."

"Never mind that," Ron said, not caring at all about Hannah Abbott and Ernie Macmillan's love lives. "How thick do you have to be to not be able to follow a plan of Hermione's?

Susan smiled faintly. "Hermione is thorough, yes." She stepped back for a moment, scrutinising him. "I expect Goldstein's allegiances were elsewhere by that time." Ron nodded. "Your business today?"

"I'm to take a statement from Miss Parkinson regarding the attacks in Shropshire." He took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly, his breath flowing sharply cool against the back of his teeth with a zing. After a moment he spoke again. "I was sorry to hear about your Auntie Amelia." Susan's wand wavered ever-so-slightly, but her face remained neutral; however, a sharp pain shot through his right temple. "Ow!" He drew his fingers reflexively to the side of his head; Susan stopped him.

"Sorry for the surge," she said, blocking his fingers from touching with the tip of her wand. "Thank you, though."

He cleared his throat, vaguely uncomfortable. He'd owled his condolences, but this was far beyond the scope of what offering a cuppa could help with. "She was a good woman."

"Yes."

"Harry thinks so too."

Susan was quiet as she continued picking her way through Ron's mind. "She always liked Harry's Patronus," she said, finally letting her wand down; a puzzled expression crossed her face as she considered a particular thought of Ron's she had encountered. "Does Hermione know about--" She stopped then, and his eyes flickered guiltily for a moment before he glanced away. Above everything else, Susan was a female, and she wanted desperately to ask him about Pansy Parkinson, but the logical side of her knew she oughtn't -- it would be poor form, and she valued her professionalism far more than the childish need to assuage her innate curiosity. Ron stood before her silently, and even if she hadn't had the benefit of Legilimens, she realised with sudden insight, she might have guessed there was something anyway. She tried a different tactic. "Perhaps Harry would be better-suited to this assignment?" she enquired discretely.

He met her eyes again. "It's okay. Really." Susan hesitated still, and Ron fought an inexplicable mounting irritation. "Really."

"You've no ill intentions, then?"

"I reckon you'd be the expert in sussing out my intentions," he said dryly. "Not me."

"I can't see everything," Susan countered, stepping back. "You know that. I'm not allowed to."

"You can only be so nosy, then?" Ron asked, smiling slightly as he collected his belongings and sorted them back into his various pockets.

"Something like that, yes." She returned to her desk, rummaging for the clipboard with the visitors log. She dunked her quill. "Who are you representing?"

"Ministry of Magic. Auror Division."

"Your supervisor? Is it still Shacklebolt?"

"Nope. Moody." Ron nicked a handful of chocolates from the bowl on her desk; there were bowls of chocolate everywhere here. "Got transferred this November past."

The corner of Susan's mouth lifted slight as she wrote. "Moody's actually still alive, then?"

"Yup," he said through a mouthful of chocolate, crunching the sweets wrappers in his fist. "Moody can't die. Harry and I reckon it's physically impossible or something." There were days Ron wished for . . . well, not his death certainly, but a well-timed coma on Moody's part would be a pleasant, temporary reprieve of sorts, sure.

"You all should chip in and send him on holiday. Pass the hat around the office, and whatnot!" she joked.

"Right." He rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "The man could find a conspiracy on a deserted island. No, if he ever does die, it'll be in the middle of a chase, I guarantee you." He tipped his hand, letting the ball of chocolate wrappers drop into the rubbish bin next to Susan's desk.

"Probably so." She glanced at her clipboard, continuing. "Rank?"

"Inspector."

"Oh? Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"Are you the youngest, then?"

"Me and Harry, yeah." He grinned, his neck prickling warmly with sheepish pride.

"Good for you, Ron," she said genuinely. "That's superb! Badge number?"

"31919731."

"Do you require armed guards today?"

He thought long and hard. "No."

"All right, then. Done." She beckoned for him to come forward; together they moved toward a plain white metal door. "Lumos." She directed the beam of light into a single, round hole in the door. "Distendo." A series of whirls and clacking sounded as the door's multiple locks shifted, and the door swung open. "Good luck, Ron. Oh, and I'll owl you next week if that's good? I've scored tickets for the Wasps versus the Cannons. Tell Harry, would you?"

"Brilliant." They'd been friendly since Auror training. Besides, nobody else Ron knew actually liked the Cannons. "All right, then."

He stepped into the small room and the door shut behind him with a hollow bang; he looked around, even though he'd been here a hundred times before. The room was a great cage, with no windows, and only a second hulking, steel door leading in. A loud buzzing sound came, and the door he stood facing gave a jolt, and then slid open with a grating roll, and Ron closed his eyes as his heart gave a jump and began thumping wildly in his chest. Bugger. Ought to stop doing that, yeah. Stupid nerves.

He instantly sensed the Dementors, smelled them, heard them. Their despairing presence crawled its way up his spine, and when he opened his eyes he was shocked - still shocked, even after two years - at the sight of the rather simple-looking, uniformed guards lining each side of the corridor for as far as he could see, shoulder to shoulder. The newly-invented glamours cast upon the dementors had been Fudge's doing, and perhaps the glamours kept some personnel's panic levels down, yes. However, on some level it was far more upsetting to Ron than the actual reality of the dementors and their greying, mouldering skin, their gaping, rasping mouths, and their tapering vertebrae, flailing sickly in the air like a bony, nightmarish whip as they darted and moaned wordlessly in the sky had ever been.

When the Ministry had begun glamouring the dementors Harry had reacted violently, which Ron had found odd, for Harry had long conquered his fear of them by seventh year. But these new, aesthetically-manipulated creatures were in their own way far more mentally insidious than their predecessors. With a good, old-fashioned dementor, Ron reasoned to himself for the umpteeth time, at least one knew at first glance what they were dealing with! Dementors guised as normal humans were a terrifying prospect, and St. Mungo's had recently released a report citing a tenfold increase in uniform-specific Vestiphobia. It was because, Ron further realised, as he walked the length of the rasping passage -- wand at the ready, the cold, fetid breath of the dementors chasing his neck -- one didn't know what they were truly dealing with when it came to glamoured dementors. In turn, this made people vulnerable, and to be vulnerable meant death could certainly find a person far more easily. Ron definitely preferred a plain, straightforward dementor, yessir, he did. Didn't matter how you dressed them up -- a dementor was a dementor, period.

He came upon yet another holding area, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped into it, happy for the brief reprieve, until the door shut automatically, locking him in the tiny box, and a buzzer sounded, alerting the guards on the other side that someone was making their way.

The guards were certainly not timely, and this mildly hacked him off. Shifting from one foot to the other, he glanced down, waiting, and caught the muddled reflection of his own face staring up at him from the shiny black top of his oxfords. It reminded him briefly of being eleven and standing next to Harry, shivering in his thin pyjamas and his new maroon jumper, in a far-away room somewhere in Hogwarts, getting his first hint of what he hoped was yet to come. He lifted his head, discomfited. Sure, he had come to know the Mirror of Erised was merely an instrument of illusion, and at eleven he certainly hadn't been confident or sophisticated enough to understand that attaining his heart's desire was entirely within his control; vague doppelgangers considering him from oxidized surfaces still bothered him nonetheless. Unlike spiders, there was no spell Ron knew of which could banish the deceptively simple image of options.

The door gave a grating lurch and the buzzer sounded yet again, and he watched as it rolled open, creaking like a drawbridge; he always did his best to breathe deeply at this moment, to draw himself up and square his shoulders confidently -- to walk the walk. He was in an entity rather than a place, and it took care and practised techniques to keep it from creeping, creeping, creeping into his mind, and taking residence there. He put his hand out as if to steady himself as the door finished rolling aside, and with a silent word to himself, Ron budged forward and was promptly swallowed into the belly of the beast: Azkaban.

She came like a cat
like a cat to catnip
She came in my lap
with her womanly hips
When I first met her
I came unglued
I played the part of
a blue-blooded fool
I'm through with your sewage
I'm through with your trash
I always knew that I'd
get the last laugh

She's the kinda girl
who changes her mind really quick
She's the kinda girl who
won't just let things sit . . .

---

Ron and Pansy didn't reach even a tentative truce until December, and even then it was only because Professor Sprout forced the issue, calling them both into her office just off the greenhouses after class.

"I've received numerous complaints from your classmates regarding your attitude." Professor Sprout put her hand up as Pansy shifted, opening her mouth to reply. "Both of your attitudes," she said sternly, shooting Pansy a warning glance. Pansy refrained, falling back into silence, her mouth set sullenly. "This is absurd! Seventh years, the both of you, and prefects to boot! I'll not hear another word from your classmates regarding your infantile inability to sort out your differences for the purpose of academia."

"But, Professor Sprout," Ron objected, pointing at Pansy. "She's deliberately trying to--"

"Not. Another. Word." Professor Sprout waddled around her desk, coming to face Ron directly; stout and round, the top of her head was level with his sternum. "Mr. Weasley. You and Miss Parkinson chose to be partners--"

Pansy rolled her eyes. "I certainly didn't choose--"

"Enough. Open your mouth again, Miss Parkinson, and you'll have ten points from Slytherin, as well as a detention to serve."

"Ha!" Ron couldn't help himself; his brow furrowed worriedly. "Sorry."

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley, and I'll expect you promptly at eight o'clock tonight."

"But I've rounds tonight!"

Pansy covered her mouth coyly with the back of her hand, giggling. "What a pity," she said, her eyes sparkling malevolently. "Bum's the luck, Weasel."

"Ten points from Slytherin." Professor Sprout adopted her sternest look. "And you shall be joining Mr. Weasley, Miss Parkinson."

"But, I've rounds!"

"How brilliant for you both," Professor Sprout noted dryly. "For shame! Not another word, and I mean it. The either of you makes so much as a peep and you'll find yourself in my service through the month. Now," she poked Ron in the chest with her chubby finger, while glancing at Pansy gravely, "you're each to speak civilly to one another. You're to complete your in-class assignments as well as your practical field work without bickering, name-calling, judgment of one another's house, hexes, jinxes, insults, theories regarding the other's parentage or lodging, references to hair colour, references to animals -- canine or otherwise, Quidditch, wizarding politics, blood, derogatory drawings or sketches of one another, references to genitalia, references to dating preferences, references to family, or any general whinging pontification."

Ron wanted to die. Professor Sprout was, well, a professor! What was she doing making decrees about . . . he couldn't even think the word to himself, and besides he doubted seriously that Pansy Parkinson even had, well, regular girl bits or whatnot! Ron was quite certain Pansy was more the clutch-of-eggs variety. His face flamed. "But--"

"You shall report for detention tomorrow night as well, Mr. Weasley." Professor Sprout cut him off, her face stern and unrelenting. Ron's shoulders sagged in defeat.

"Yeah," he said, then quickly correcting himself. "Yes ma'am. Eight o'clock." He glanced sideways at Pansy; her smirking mug was enough to make his hand twitch, so he quickly looked back to Sprout, clenching his fists tightly. Clench. Release. Clench. Release. His heart pounded in his chest angrily, and he felt slighted and misunderstood. He wanted to explain to Sprout, to force her to see reason, that he was doing the very best he could, that he was trying to give Harry a break, and that everything was changing, and everything he cherished was coming to an end, and that he wanted to go back to the times where Harry's destiny wasn't right here, right now, but even as his urge to protest rose, he knew he wouldn't say anything. He took in several deep breaths, quashing his rage. "Eight o'clock," he repeated in a clipped tone, shooting a final death glare at Pansy, who was just behind Sprout; their eyes met, and she turned her back on him, arms crossed sulkily over her chest.

"Get along now." Professor Sprout shooed them from her office, not pausing even as Ron tripped over the doorjamb and went sprawling. "Good day to you both."

---

Pansy Parkinson was really very tiny. She bought new school robes every August, although she didn't need them for growth's sake, and one of the fondest recent memories she savoured was how toward the end of fifth year, she'd finally outgrown her uniform Mary Janes from the childrens section of Madam Malkin's. On a generous day, maybe while soaking wet and after a full meal, Pansy topped out at seven and a half stone on the scale. She'd stopped growing at just five feet, and was no longer even remotely holding out hope for any further gain in that department. The only advantage, she often turned over in her mind with a kind of begrudging affection, is I'll never grow taller than Draco's heart. Draco'd told her this himself. I hope you never grow taller, he'd said. So at fifteen, she'd shifted her concentration instead to her bust, which was actually a nice handful for a petite girl like her, but it didn't stop her from wishing for more.

Pansy was all about wishing for more.

She'd gathered her things after Sprout had lectured them, and had stepped right over the Weasel after he'd tripped in the doorway, squashing his fingers under her shoe without a second thought, and was now currently stalking back to the castle. He'd ruint her evening plans, the dumb sod, and mentally she began re-arranging her schedule, trying to allow for a detention amongst her many other obligations.

He caught up to her shortly, not because he wanted to, but because his stride was twice hers, and it was a simple matter of physics. Pansy rolled her eyes to herself as she heard him crunching along just behind her. The day was cold and grey, and she could see her breath in the air. She flexed her fingers in her gloves, settling into the silver and green scarf she'd woven about her neck until the bottom half of her face was fully covered. Ignoring him, she made her way along the path.

"Just so you know," he said, finally breaking the silence, "I'm not ruddy catering to you, Parkinson."

"Oh, bully," she said snottily, not looking back. "Dash all my grand expectations of you, why not."

"And what Sprout doesn't know won't kill her!"

Pansy pulled back, giving him a look. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, sneering disdainfully.

Ron stalked ahead, his strides sure and deliberate. "No bloody way I'm making it through this fecking project with -- with -- " He gestured as he walked, searching for the right words. "With her telling me what I can or cannot say!"

She fell into step behind him again. "How flattering. You're willing to defy Professor Sprout for little old me?" she drawled.

"Get over yourself, Pugginson!" Ron made a gagging noise to emphasise his point.

She hurried by, scowling. "If you think I'm about to forget you managed to get us both detention tonight, you're very much mistaken," she said. "Draco will be displeased, and you've mucked up my schedule something awful!"

"Me?" This was too much. "It's you who's caused all the problems, because you're -- you're . . . I dunno, so rude all the time."

"I'm rude? Honestly." She snorted dismissively. "Now get out of my way."

"You're the one walking in front," Ron noted petulantly, satisfied in his petty victory. She threw a glance at him over her shoulder, looking up. He could only see her wide, brown eyes peeking over the edge of her scarf, looking at him, but not really seeing him.

"Yes," she said waspishly. "As it should be. So mind you remember your place." With that, Pansy pranced up the stairs to the towered doors leading into Hogwarts, leaving Ron Weasley in her wake, his stupid Gryffindor scarf blowing behind him in the cold, Scottish wind, thinking only of Draco's patrician grey eyes and what she might do to coax a spark into them tonight, and Arithmancy, rich and complex, and the tiny warren of rabbits behind Hagrid's hut that she and Daphne had always looked after.

---

Prefect rounds that night were appalling.

Ron was paired up with Padma Patil, whom he'd never been comfortable around since the Yule Ball fiasco -- she'd made it perfectly clear she had a long memory, plus a penchant for grudges. He'd been attacked by a rogue flock of shimmering purple fruit bats just outside the Divination Tower, one which had bitten his ear, and he was positive he had streaks of guano down the back of his robes now. As well, he and Padma had just discovered a relatively fresh puddle of vomit in a faraway corridor, just off the main wing of the dungeons.

"Oh bleurgh," Padma moaned, covering her mouth with her hand, delicately pinching her nostrils shut. "Gross!"

Ron stared, dumbfounded. "Who the sod'd spew up in a corridor? The loo's just right there."

Padma turned her back, her own stomach revolting; a slight retching noise escaped her throat.

"Oi," he said, momentarily forgetting his discomfort around her. "C'mon, back away. Don't need two puddles of sick to deal with." He stuffed his hands into his pockets, making to follow after her. "You go on. I'll see about--" A noise caught his attention; he turned and peered back into the darkened corridor, pulling his wand quickly. "Lumos." He felt Padma come up behind him again.

"What's there, Ron?"

"Dunno." He inched forward, wand held aloft, its light casting softly against the stone walls. "Who's there?" he called gruffly, conjuring his most prefectly tone. The light brightened as Padma drew her own wand. "Get outta there! And if you've been drinking, you'd better 'fess up and clean up your mess, or Snape'll--"

"Wait," Padma said quietly, putting her hand on his arm for a moment; she stepped around him and moved forward. Ron peered around her, straining to see past the light of her wand, but she disappeared downward then, alarming him.

"Padma?!"

"It's all right," she called back; he caught up to her. She was kneeling, and Ron instantly saw why. A small girl was huddled against the wall, pale and shivering; she appeared almost ghost-like under the bluish light of their wands. "There," Padma said soothingly, reaching out to smooth the little girl's dark hair. "Are you ill, love?" The little girl's face screwed up and she burst into tears. She was the smallest firstie Ron had ever seen.

"Mummy! I want my Mummy!" she cried, bawling at the top of her lungs. Ron edged closer, letting the light of his wand fall over the child; he scanned the little girl's robes. Slytherin.

"All right?" he asked, kneeling next to Padma, his brow furrowing in concern.

"Shh Shh," Padma soothed her, tucking the girl's hair behind her ear. "You are ill -- of course you're wanting your Mummy. Were you sick just there?" She indicated toward the puddle behind them, and the girl turned to bury her face against the stone wall, mortified.

"Should I-- Do you want me to go get a cuppa?" Ron asked, totally out of his element, glancing between the disheveled child and Padma. Spewing first-years hiding in the darkened corridors of the Slytherin dungeons was certainly not his forte.

"No, don't be silly, Ron," Padma said, reaching for the little girl again. "She needs Madam Pomfrey, right? Come on . . . that's right . . . . " Padma had the girl turned around again in a jiffy. Her face was ashen and appeared to be misted over with a fine sheen of perspiration, and darkened circles hollowed her enormous eyes. "Oh dear, you are feeling quite poorly, I can tell. I'll take you to the hospital wing." She stood up, taking up the little girl's hand. "Your hand is freezing!" Padma rubbed it between her own briskly.

The girl peered up at Padma and Ron, and Ron was struck by an unusual sense of foreboding as he met her eyes. A shiver crawled up his spine; swallowing, he tried to quash the feeling, chalking it up to a generally unpleasant day topped with catching the night dungeon patrol. He was tired, no doubt. "Please," she whispered. "Please, you mustn't tell Professor Snape." Her eyes pleaded with them, and her lip began to quiver again. "He'll be hacked off with me." Her eyes welled up again.

"Nonsense," Padma said firmly, once again patting the girl's hand. "It's not your fault! I'll wager you were on your way to loo just around the corner, as fast as you could manage, am I right?" The child nodded tentatively. "And you just didn't make it on time. It happens to us all at some point." She adopted a gentle, conspiratorial tone. "When I was a first year, I was sick on the brooms during our first flying lesson."

"You were?" the girl asked, blinking owlishly, even as a tiny scowl worked at her mouth.

"You were?" Ron asked, wrinkling his nose. "You mean the school brooms? I hope Madam Hooch got them disinfected or somesuch, 'cos, you know, we all used them."

Padma rolled her eyes at him as she directed the Slytherin first-year toward the main corridor. "Ron, I'm taking her to the hospital wing. If you will take care of . . . that . . . " She gestured with her head toward the puddle of sick on the floor. "And report to Professor Snape that she is ill--" She stopped and looked down at the girl. "What's your name?"

"Catherine Parkinson," she said, a hint of haughtiness creeping into her voice. "With a 'C'."

Ron cringed visibly; this is what he got for skipping the Sorting that year: an unexpected encounter of the Slytherin kind. Ugh. "Parkinson has a sister?" he asked, his lip curling before he could stop himself. Catherine Parkinson glared at his reaction, fixing a hard gaze on him, which was so like Pansy's that Ron genuinely felt uncomfortable.

Padma shook her head. "No, no. Pansy doesn't have any siblings." She shifted her glance back to Catherine. "Well?" she prompted gently.

"Pansy's my cousin," Catherine said, nodding sagely, and Ron was finally struck by the truly incredible resemblance between the little girl and Pansy.

Of course, he thought, allowing himself to relax a touch. He now understood his earlier feeling of trepidation. Parkinson's got herself a Doppelganger. Merlin help the lot of us.

"Her father and my father are brothers -- six years apart, just like me and Pansy!"

"How brilliant for you both," Ron said, mustering a cheesy smile. A shame, he thought privately. Poor sod. She'll likely grow into a ruddy homely, obnoxious bint, with a rude family to boot.

"It's always lovely to have family with us at school, isn't it?" Padma commented, brushing Catherine's long hair away from her shoulders with her hands. "Well, Catherine, Ron will take care of the corridor and will inform Professor Snape where you are. Let me take you to Madam Pomfrey, then, before you catch your death!"

"Oh, I can't catch my death," Catherine said haughtily, tipping her head up to consider Ron as she stepped closer to Padma, clutching at Padma's robes, her fingers disappearing into the folds of the black fabric. "You're a Beater, aren't you?" she asked.

He stared down at her; it was like looking at Pansy six years earlier. He wondered vaguely if Catherine Parkinson would also be an insufferable, midget princess too, once she was a seventh year. Probably. "Yeah," he answered, giving her a forced smile. "Beater. Gryffindor."

"Draco says Gryffindor sucks!" Catherine blurted forcefully, regarding him even more suspiciously with her dark Parkinson eyes.

"Catherine!" Padma admonished, giving Ron a helplessly apologetic look. "Be polite, lest you find yourself cleaning up your own mess." Her voice softened again. "You're not well, so I'm positive Ron will overlook your comment, and take it in the spirit of congenial house rivalry--" She gave Catherine the Evil Prefect Eye, and spoke slowly to make her point -- "which I am sure was your intention all along."

"Gryffindor sucks!"

"Yeah, well, we Gryffindors know how to spew in the loo at least!" Ron shot back.

"Ron!" Padma glanced reproachfully at him. "I think we ought to be off, then. Do remember Catherine is an ill first-year and that you are a seventh year prefect. I'm quite sure she would not speak her mind in such an . . . unhindered . . . manner under normal circumstances."

"Yeah, right," Ron scoffed. "Spawn of Parkinson! I reckon she'd ruddy well not bother to hold her tongue ever, just like her bint of a cousin Pans--"

"Ron."

"Well!"

"Draco says," and Catherine's eyes shone with admiration as Draco's name rolled off her tongue, "that you're too rude to be Head Boy, Weasley. That's why you're not Head Boy."

What the sod was this? "Malfoy's not Head Boy either, I'll have you know -- speaking of bloody crap manners!" he boggled, wondering vaguely why he was arguing with an eleven-year-old. He squatted in front of the cross little girl, attempting to adopt his most affable demeanour. "Parkinson? I hate to break the news to you, but Malfoy is hopelessly inbred. That means everything he says is pure bunk, owing to the fact he's only half a brain in his thick skull to work with."

"You mean pureblood, Weasley, not pure bunk," the child countered, crossing her arms across her chest haughtily, leading Ron to wonder if Pansy Parkinson had been secretly cloned in the dank depths of the dungeons as part of an evil, Slytherin eugenics plot, and had subsequently been set loose amongst the student body in this nefarious, pseudo-Pogrebin form.

"Malfoy tell you that too?" Ron couldn't resist -- God, he fucking hated Malfoy. He reached out and put his finger squarely on Catherine Parkinson's chin, covering the slight cleft she had there, just like Pansy's. She drew back instantly, fading into the folds of Padma's robes again. "How's that? Gotcha -- Gryffindor germs!"

"I hate Gryffindor," she countered, peeking around from Padma's backside. "Gryffindor's the house of show-offs, bad teeth, and rubbish-bin breeders!"

Ron pulled a face. "Oh, come on," he said hotly. "That's a load of shite, and you know it, firstie! That's just your dumb cousin talking!"

Catherine stared at Ron flatly. "I'm telling Professor Snape you've taught me how to say 'shite'," she informed him, raising her chin a notch.

"Honestly," Padma huffed, putting up her hand. "That's quite enough, the both of you! Stop." She shooed Catherine forward. "Come on, then. Let's get you to Madam Pomfrey before you're sick again."

Ron waited until they had turned the corner before standing. "Little shite," he muttered, glancing over at the puddle she'd left. "How's a creature that little manage such a huge mess?" Gingerly he approached it, covering his mouth in distaste as the smell wafted around him. Nothing was grosser than the smell of spew. Well, except-- "Evanesco!" he incanted, trying the first banishing spell that came to mind. The greyish, mercurial puddle shifted sideways, rearranging itself, and the liquid portion disappeared. Ron stared at the remaining bits. "Bloody disgusting," he lamented, squinting. "That is so -- is that pineapple?" He thought for a moment, then finally fell back on Molly's perennial favourite. "Scourgify." Nothing happened. "Crap," he muttered, thinking. His mind fell back to the end of fifth year, when Fred and George had left Hogwarts in the midst of their kerfuffle with Umbridge, and he remembered their swamp rather fondly. With a wave of his wand he conjured a set of velvet ropes, setting them about the residual sick, and made a mental note to notify Filch of the mess as soon as he was done reporting to Snape. Quickly Ron lit the sconces secured against the stone wall, checking the small hallway thoroughly for additional puddles. Finding nothing, he turned away and ducked out, looking both ways as he merged into the main corridor.

He really wasn't keen on traversing the dungeons alone, especially at night. This was Slytherin territory, and although the Slytherins mostly let the Gryffindor prefects be while they were patrolling their routes -- which Professor McGonagall assigned on a rotating basis, mind -- he knew he ought to get out of there as soon as possible. Trolls like Crabbe or Goyle weren't partial to observing the rules outlined in Hogwarts: A Handbook, much less tacit, unspoken understandings made mainly between the heads of houses.

He made his way to the potions dungeon, and knocked lightly on Professor Snape's office door, his gut clenching a bit. There was no answer. He knocked again, pushing the door open. "Professor Snape?" Scanning the room, he didn't see Snape; he stepped in and crossed over to the double doors leading to the potions stores. Reaching out, he grasped the knob and wiggled it; it was firmly locked.

"Bugger," he said, turning around and leaning against the storeroom doors. He let his eyes wander around Snape's office, his guard still very much up, until his gaze lit on the inkwell on Snape's desk -- he would leave a note. He crossed over to the desk, reaching for one of the quills standing ready in Professor Snape's plume stand, but then hesitated. Digging in his pocket, he managed to find an emergency quill he kept on hand, that he had fashioned himself from an unusually small Diricawl feather he'd found out by the Quidditch pitch one day; he used it to make notes to himself on prefect rounds and whatnot. Pausing again, he rooted around once more, extracting the tiny bottle of ink Hermione had charmed for him to keep in his pocket. Uncapping the ink, he curled himself over the top of Snape's desktop, and wrote.

"Dear Snivellus," he intoned slowly, under his breath, as his quill scratched across a spare bit of parchment nicked from Snape's rubbish bin. Dear Professor Snape his script read, despite his outer diatribe. "While on prefect rounds this evening -- 13 December -- Padma Patil and I found . . . . quite possibly the most heinous child to come out of the Wizarding upper crust since Draco Malfoy . . . " This evening, 13 December, Padma Patil and I came across a Slytherin first-year, Catherine Parkinson, who-- "Is too mental and cross to find the girls' loo, and spewed pineapple, spinach, and what looked to be about a bloody pound of silver sardine Bertie Botts onto the castle floor . . . " -- was sick." He paused for a moment, blowing at the ink lightly. "Padma and I couldn't ruddy well figure out how to best dispose of the little Hellspawn . . . Devil's Snare? A toss into the Chamber of Secrets? An unguided, blindfolded romp 'top the Astronomy Tower? In the end we decided the school had enough Slytherins as it is, and so have sold the barmy puglet to Muggle gypsies . . . . " Ron began writing again. Padma took her to Madam Pomfrey. I tried to clean up the corridor, but the puke it wouldn't come up. I will notify Filch straight away. "I'm sure you'll be wanting to knick the proceeds for yourself, you evil sod, but we didn't get much -- just a doggie biscuit for her bitch of a cousin and two wooden knuts for Malfoy the Inbred . . . . " We thought you ought to know. Well, that's all. He signed his name: Ronald B. Weasley, Prefect, Gryffindor House, pausing then to re-read his masterpiece.

Satisfied, he placed it on Professor Snape's desk. As he turned to leave, it occurred to him that perhaps Snape was in the potions classroom itself, working on lesson plans. On occasion Snape had been there when Ron had thought him out of the dungeons all together -- he and Harry had found this out the hard way during sixth year, when they had attempted to steal lacewings for another Polyjuice brew. It had been the worst detention ever, involving caustic stone polish, toothpicks, and a subsequent hand rash which had lasted over a week. Ron shook off the memory, and walked into the short corridor connecting Snape's office to the potions dungeon.

The hallway was dark, and he didn't see any light coming from under the door. Hesitating, he wondered if it was obvious Snape wasn't in; deciding nothing was obvious with Snape, Ron pushed open the door to the classroom, and stepped through as it swung open silently. He managed two steps into the classroom before his senses kicked in, and he paused. He pulled his wand, ready to light it, but something inside him gave pause yet again, and he hesitated once more. Thinking, a truly brilliant spell Hermione'd taught him just weeks ago floated through this mind. There was only one aspect to the spell that would be risky here, but although Ron was aware he was in the presence of other people, he did not have a sense of foreboding per se. Yes, he was on guard, but there was no feeling of imminent doom. "Obscuro Nox," he incanted as quietly as he could, touching the tip of his wand to his thigh.

It was as if someone was pulling an Invisibility Cloak over him from the ground up. He felt the spell work its way up, swirling around his ankles, his legs, then his torso, as it wove itself upward in a split second, until there was a brilliant flash of light as the spell enclosed him fully at the top of his head. He remained perfectly still, and the energy shot through the darkened classroom with a quick burst, spinning itself out within a second, like a lazy cluster of fireflies suddenly dimmed.

"What was that?" a female voice whispered, quite breathlessly.

"Don't care," another answered. "Don't stop . . ."

"What if someone's there?"

"No one's there!"

"I'm serious! Snape'll--"

"You're the one who couldn't wait."

Ron's vision adjusted, and the silhouetted outline of the familiar potions dungeon was drawn from the general inkiness of the dark classroom. He looked around, stepping forward silently. Hermione was working on increasing the length of the spell, but as it was he knew he had seven minutes or so where he could not be seen, but he himself could see. Hermione'd theorised that the spell was both an invisibility charm and a vision spell, but they'd yet to test it at night. Ron felt a thrill of excitement pass through him as it became apparent he was able to see adequately, and he made a mental note to pay attention to the experience as fully as possible, so he could report back to Hermione with as much information as possible.

He made his way easily through the classroom, gliding silently through the row of benches and worktables before him, and made his way down to the front of the classroom, down to the area where Snape's desk was located, and as he did so he located the source of the whispering. Malfoy's blond hair was unmistakable.

"My schedule's been mucked up, that's why," Pansy whispered to Draco. "Sorry."

"It's all right," Draco said, reaching for her.

Ron froze. For the love of all things holy, he lamented to himself. Malfoy and Parkinson. And they're--

Draco was seated in Professor Snape's desk chair, which had no arms. Ron'd always wondered if it was because Snape wasn't the type to ever relax, to ever rest his elbows, in the belief it might render him unguarded, but he had to admit if a bloke wanted a girl perched on his lap, Snape's chair was an excellent choice, and that's where Pansy Parkinson was -- straddling Draco Malfoy's lap, Malfoy's legs sprawled casually from underneath her. Their chests bumped together as they whispered, and Malfoy leaned in, saying something to Pansy that Ron couldn't quite make out. Malfoy cupped Pansy's cheek then, and she tilted her head into his touch, and then leaned forward and kissed him.

Ron stepped backward, turning to flee, an ill sensation flaring in his gut, and he fully recognised he had just been introduced to the concept of fight or flight in the most horribly tangible of ways. He couldn't imagine anything more repulsive than witnessing a full-blown snogging session between Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson; however, Hermione's face flashed through his mind. Hermione'd want me to stay, he reasoned to himself. She'd want me to tell her about the spell. Okay, well, probably not -this- bit . . . He moved around Pansy's back, stopping behind her about ten feet, falling motionless.

"What about those lights?" Pansy whispered, tugging at her blouse, pulling it loose from her skirt's waistband. "Mmm," she sighed, and after a moment Ron could make out movement under the back of her jumper, and he guessed it was Malfoy's hand there, rubbing, sliding, smoothing her skin.

"Probably just a spontaneous combustion," Malfoy said. "This is the potions class, after all. Lots of combustibles, yeah?" He pulled Pansy in for another kiss, and Ron decided to move on. He skirted around them, giving them wide berth, thinking he would head over to Snape's massive shelf of potions books, which was built into the northern wall of the classroom, and see if he could read the titles in the dark. He glanced sideways, still wary, and watched Malfoy slide his hand up Pansy's thigh, pushing her skirt up as his fingers disappeared under its billowing folds, and in an instant Pansy was sighing again, and she let her head tip back slightly. Malfoy buried his face in the hollow of her throat, kissing her there until she let out a low moan.

"That's good?" Ron could hear Malfoy's voice muffled against her skin, and he glimpsed movement under her skirt; the pale skin of her inner thigh contrasted vividly against the surrounding dark as she shifted her leg, bringing it up and resting her foot on the chair's seat as she moved against Malfoy's touch.

"Ah . . . mmm," she breathed, and Ron was both utterly revolted and completely mesmerised.

He hadn't done . . . well, done much, really, with any girl. He'd kissed Hermione that one time, and he'd had random snogging and groping sessions with Hannah Abbott during prefect patrols here and there, but neither he nor Hannah had ever made any attempt to build it into anything beyond that. Frankly, her indifference to any formalities had relieved Ron quite a lot, as he thought Hannah Abbott was perfectly nice, but overall she was about as interesting to him as a foggy crystal ball. Compared to Hermione, very few girls were interesting, he'd found. So while he appreciated getting off with Hannah -- 'cos bloody hell, yes, it felt good when it happened -- at his core it felt uncomfortable if he were to be truthful with himself. Hannah was a fine girl; he didn't begrudge her her own urges and needs or anything. But, for Ron, it just felt wrong, and he didn't really know why, for he wasn't opposed to snogging for kicks, or even shagging, on some kind of pious moral platform or whatever.

He heard Pansy's breath quicken, and Malfoy . . . growled or something, and pushed her jumper and blouse up, and Ron was startled as more of her pale skin was revealed, and then her breasts were silhouetted in the dark as Malfoy fumbled between them one-handedly. He heard a slight clicking sound, and Malfoy pushed her bra open, and Ron could see him touch his tongue to the peak of her breast, sucking it into his mouth and making her groan.

"Yeah?" Malfoy asked her, her nipple caught between his teeth, his hand moving rhythmically beneath her skirt.

"Yes, oh . . . " Pansy breathed. She arched her back slightly, and a breathless string of sounds unfurled from her, sounds Ron had never in his life been privy to, other than from the descriptions of his brothers' especially lewd stories. He gaped silently, and although he was not overly acquainted with such things, Ron was quite certain what Pansy's muffled noises had signified. Holy shite Mother of Merlin . . .

"There you go," Malfoy whispered to her finally, his hand stilling as she finished coming, and he drew his hand away and laced his fingers through hers. "Feel that?"

"Ah, God, yeah. Felt good," she whispered back. And then they were kissing again, desperately, wetly, and Malfoy dragged her up from where she was sitting on him, their tongues still tangled.

"Get on the desk," he mumbled into her mouth. "God, hurry, I can't wait anymore." He stood then, pushing at her, and they fumbled blindly toward Snape's desk, kissing loudly, with abandon. Malfoy plopped Pansy onto the desktop and began undoing his trousers as she pushed his shirt and jumper up, revealing the pale plane of his stomach. Malfoy let his hands fall away. "Touch me . . . "

Pansy lifted her hand, sliding her other arm around his backside, and pulled him closer; Malfoy began moving against her. Ron had no idea what she was doing to him exactly, but whatever it was Malfoy was enjoying it thoroughly. He widened his stance, and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing tightly, his head falling back, mouth slightly open.

"Oh God oh God," Malfoy chanted mindlessly, under his breath. "Oh, yeah." Pansy pushed his jumper up further and touched her mouth to his stomach, her chin at the waistband of his trousers as Malfoy writhed under her, and then he was pulling at her jumper as well, dragging it upward until it wouldn't budge any further without her actually lifting her arms for him to slide it off. Ron could barely make out his next words. "Suck it, Pansy, please?" He'd pulled her to him as tightly as he could, and he shuddered in the dark as he moved against the swell of her breasts. "Put your mouth on me . . . " Ron shut his eyes, trying to mentally regroup.

"No," she whispered, nipping at his belly lightly. "Maybe later. I've got detention . . . "

"Who cares?" Malfoy whinged, reaching down to touch himself. "I'm so close . . ."

"I just don't want to!" she said, totally unfazed, as if she were very used to putting Malfoy off. "Besides, it makes my throat feel funny -- like there's a great blob of something stuck there. I have to keep clearing it afterward."

"Can't you just have a cough lolly or something?"

"No." Pansy batted Malfoy's hand away and replaced it with her own, and he sucked in his breath sharply at her touch. "Later," she soothed, placating him, reaching up to smooth his fringe away from his eyes. She moved then, pressing against him, fluidly matching his rhythm, her hand still lost down the front of his trousers, and he let out a hiss. "This is good, though, isn't it?" she whispered.

"Oh hell," Malfoy breathed, threading his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck, touching his other hand to the centre of her back, prompting her to arch against him. "No, no, no . . . " Malfoy pleaded as she drew her hand away from his trousers, but his breath quickened as she kissed him again, trailing her mouth under his sternum, licking here and there, and he pulled at her again. "Just -- push down my shorts. Oh . . . " Ron shifted, and for a split second Malfoy's -- Oh, ugh -- was silhouetted as she drew him free from his trousers, pushing them down, and she drew her hand down her tongue, and then reached for him. "Yeah," Malfoy hissed, and then he shuddered fully, a sharp cry escaping him as he thrust upward sharply.

Ron was rooted to the floor of the potions classroom; an almost palpable silence crept through the dark and still classroom, and he suddenly understood how completed fucked up this was, and he knew there was no way in hell he would ever be relaying this incident to Hermione, and he felt both traumatised and thoroughly unclean.

He was distracted by a vague unraveling feeling as he watched Pansy tip her head up to look at Malfoy, resting her chin just under his navel, and Ron found himself squinting then, as the darkness enveloped him once again. Blinking blindly, he realised the Obscuro Nox spell had run its course, and he fought a momentary surge of panic. Reaching carefully behind him, Ron closed his eyes reflexively, despite the classroom being pitch black. Just three feet thataway, he thought to himself, mapping the potions classroom in his mind; there were four thick pillars of marble spaced throughout the front of the classroom that were wide enough to hide behind. Groping slowly, he began moving backward, silently, at the same moment realising that Malfoy and Pansy fully had the advantage over him now, as their eyes were accustomed to the dark, whereas his sight had been magically enhanced until ten seconds ago. Without the spell, he was as blind as a bat. He inched toward where he believed one of the pillars to be as rustling sounds came from the vicinity of Snape's desk.

"Let me get my wand," Malfoy said in a low tone, presumably not as afraid to speak aloud, now that he and Pansy were finished, and were mostly out of danger of being caught in a compromising position. "What time's your detention?"

"Eight o'clock," Ron heard Pansy answer; smooth, cool marble brushed against his fingertips, and he flattened his palm against its side, slipping quickly behind it just as Malfoy's voice came again.

"Lumos," Malfoy incanted, and Ron instinctively closed his eyes as the tiny light flared to life on the other side of the pillar, and it struck him as very odd that he'd always closed his eyes when he didn't want to be seen. He'd done it since he was a young boy. Back then, he had reasoned, he'd simply thought if he couldn't see, it meant in turn he couldn't be seen. So simple, yet so sensical to a child. He'd not understood until he was at least seven why it was that Bill or Charlie could always find him during a game of hide-and-seek in the Burrow, when he'd merely seated himself at Molly's kitchen table and had shut his eyes as tightly as possible.

"Sorry," Malfoy continued, to Pansy, "kind of got you there." If Ron didn't know differently, he might have thought Malfoy a bit sheepish at that moment. He dared to peek around the pillar. Malfoy was wiping gently at Pansy's belly. He pointed his wand at her. "Evanesco." Pansy looked down, touching her fingers to her navel.

"Thank you," she said cheekily, gazing up at him affectionately as he tugged her jumper and blouse down; her hands disappeared as she reached under her clothing to refasten her bra, snapping it into place smartly when she was done.

Ron eased back out of sight. So noted, he mused, thoroughly revolted. Evanesco: not for chunks of spew, but just corking for . . . oh -ugh- . . . His stomach twitched as he was reminded with a jolt that this was Malfoy and Parkinson in question.

"What time's your detention again?" The sound of Malfoy's zipper seemed rather revoltingly pronounced.

"I just said, goose!" She chuckled amiably. "Eight o'clock."

"Hmm. Well, you're about to be late, goose." Ron heard a scrambling sound then, and he realised that if Parkinson was about to be late, so was he. Cursing silently to himself, he willed them to hurry up so he could escape the horrid confines of the potions dungeons. The fact that he had inadvertently rendered himself a voyeuristic party to a graphic sexual encounter between the two most loathsome Slytherins at Hogwarts made him feel as if he ought to schedule a prophylactic mental appointment at St. Mungo's nutters ward straight away. That the encounter had occurred in the most loathsome classroom at Hogwarts exacerbated his revulsion considerably, and for a moment he thought he just might take a cue from Catherine Parkinson, and hurl his dinner right onto the floor. He tried to breathe evenly as Malfoy and Pansy went about putting themselves back together, but his heart was in his throat the entire time, so sure was he that his discovery was inevitable. I've nothing to lose, he thought, and shut his eyes tightly.

He didn't relax until at least ten minutes after he was positive they'd left the potions dungeon. Finally the knowledge he was inexcusably late for detention with Sprout prompted him to peel himself away from the pillar and pick his way through the empty classroom. The lace of his trainer caught on the metal foot of a workbench just as he reached the door leading back into Snape's office. He pulled at it, kicking his foot out, and then turned and pushed through the door, and smacked directly into Snape.

"Mr. Weasley," Snape said, drawling dangerously. His beetle-black eyes glittered malevolently as he folded his arms into the flowing layers of his usual black robes. "Explain yourself."

Oh, for -sod's- sake. He raised his eyes to Snape's. "I was -- Malfoy was -- that is --"

"Yes?" Snape said, his expression set.

He thumbed over his shoulder, back toward the classroom. "I was -- Malfoy and Parkinson . . . did you see my note, sir?"

"Not only did I see your note, as you so eloquently put it, Mr. Weasley," Snape answered, a predatory tone snaking amongst his words, "but I also read it."

"Erm, right. 'Course." Ron stared helplessly at Snape, aware he had absolutely nothing to offer as far as an explanation.

"I'm certain you and your other partners in crime fancy yourselves exceptionally stealthy and well-versed in the art of subterfuge by now," Snape continued silkily. "However, I would be sorely remiss in my duty if I did not inform you otherwise. Detention, Weasley. Five nights, starting immediately."

"I've got detention with Sprout!" Ron blurted out, not surprised at being doled another set of detention from Snape.

"Busy this year, are we? Very well. Tomorrow night you may begin serving your detention with me."

"Erm, right." Ron followed Snape through the corridor. "I-- well, you see . . . I've detention with Sprout tomorrow as well."

"Professor Sprout," Snape hissed, turning to face Ron once they'd re-entered his office. "That's a sixth detention for you, Mr. Weasley. Do you care to disrespect any of your other instructors at present?"

Yeah, -you-, you bloody pisshole. "No, Professor Snape. Sir." He watched silently as Snape rounded his desk and seated himself with a cool flutter of robes.

Snape drew his quill, flipping the lid to his inkwell open with a flick of his thumb. Drawing a sheet of parchment from his tray, he began to write; after a moment he paused, lifting his eyes to look at Ron from under his greasy canopy of hair. "Well?" he enquired irritatedly, his yellowed teeth flashing at Ron. "Is there something else?" He rolled his eyes slightly. "Do let us hope there is something else."

Snape'd looked back down to his parchment, so Ron rolled his own eyes in return. "What about Malfoy and Parkinson?" he asked hotly, still aesthetically offended by what he'd witnessed.

"What about Mr. Malfoy and Miss Parkinson, Mr. Weasley?"

"Erm."

"Spit it out, if you please. Surely it will not surprise you to hear I've more important matters to attend to, other than what will undoubtedly prove to be your most scintillating news regarding Mr. Malfoy and Miss Parkinson."

Ron's words died on his tongue and he intrinsically knew this situation wasn't going to suss itself out in any way favourable to him. He thought quickly, and opted for Fast and Painful. "They're just disgusting, that's what!"

"Take another detention for your unprovoked verbal assault against two of my most esteemed and exemplary Slytherin students," Snape said lightly, the nib of his quill scratching busily across the parchment again.

"Yes, Sir," Ron said, falling silent, hoping this would do it.

A minute passed before Snape lifted his head again. "What is it?" he hissed.

"Huh? Oh! Erm, nothing. I'm done."

"You are excused," Snape said, shaking his head at Ron's idiocy.

"Right, then." Ron was out the door in two steps. "Thank you, Sir."

Snape's voice followed him as he dashed down the corridor. "An eighth detention for running in the halls . . . "

"Yes, Sir," he called over his shoulder, skidding around the corner where he and Padma had found Catherine Parkinson. "Shite," he whinged, as the velvet ropes came back into his sight. "Filch." Certain Sprout would flay him alive anyway by this point, Ron decided he might as well seek out the caretaker now rather than later. Resigned, he cast one last glance toward the corridor, the wall sconces still flickering brightly, then halted.

The puddle residual was gone.

"Huh," Ron said, scratching behind his ear absentmindedly as he considered the scene. "Guess Filch already found it." Shrugging, he glanced it over a final time, and then jogged away, focusing on getting to the greenhouses.

---

Ron earned a ninth and tenth detention from Sprout for being late, but escaped with only a relatively minor lecture comparatively. He decided not to bother with any protective robes at this time of night, but did nick a pair of earmuffs on the way into Greenhouse Three, in case tonight's detention involved Mandrakes. Draping them around his neck, he ducked through the greenhouse door.

Pansy's back was to him as he approached, and she was working silently at one of the long planting tables. Ron recognised the waving fronds of the Arabesque fern reaching upward, trembling slightly in the air above her as she dug in its pot. The table was loaded with them. Ron's face warmed involuntarily and he did the best he could to push the evening's earlier events away from the forefront of his mind. He grabbed a trowel and took his place next to her, keeping quite a reasonable distance. With exceptional focus, he drove the trowel into the moist soil.

"Mind you don't sever the roots, Weasel," Pansy said as he mucked about in the fern's pot.

"Mind you pay attention to your own fern, I reckon."

"So," she drawled haughtily, lifting the Arabesque fern from its pot, "another detention for you. More's the pity."

Suck it, Pansy, please? "Sod off." He couldn't even look at her.

"I can't imagine what kept you."

You don't -want- to imagine, he grumped to himself, remaining silent as his ears practically burst into flames from the embarrassment of it all. He was convinced the silhouetted image of Malfoy and Pansy's tryst was by now permanently burned into the backs of his eyelids.

Pansy held her arms out straight, clutching the fern firmly. "Ooo, there's a love," she cooed to the fern, shaking it lightly, dislodging clumps of dirt from its roots, which rained down on Ron's trainers. "You fancy a dance, don't you, baby?"

Ron rolled his eyes and yanked his own fern from its pot. Sodding dumb Arabesque ferns, he thought darkly. Stupid plants, really. What use is a plant that dances ruddy ballet when its roots aren't clipped? "Crap plant," he muttered aloud, voicing his feelings. The fern wilted dejectedly in his hands.

Pansy shot him a look. "There's nothing wrong with the Arabesque fern, Weasel," she said loftily. "It has many purposes, I'll have you know. Its leaves make a poultice for chest congestion, and if you can manage to nip their roots whilst they're in mid-leap, you'll be able to draft a powerful counter-potion to the Sleeping Death." She set her fern down gently, fluffing its fronds. "Go on, lovey," she said. "Have a dance!" The fern bowed deeply, sweeping a frond across its front like a little arm; rising up, its roots coiled together, forming two legs of sorts, and it was en pointe within seconds. "First position," Pansy clipped, directing the fern. "Brilliant! Now second . . . third . . . very good, now fourth . . . and fifth. Beautiful!" She shooed the fern away; they both watched as it pirouetted elegantly, spinning itself down the aisles between the rows of tables. Pansy looked at Ron. "Well?"

He stared back, still holding his fern at arms' length. "Well what?" he asked.

She clucked at him impatiently. "Get yours up and going, then. Have it run through its positions as a warm-up exercise, then let it dance!"

"Positions?" He was bewildered.

"Ballet positions," she said superiourly. "Haven't you worked with Arabesque ferns before?"

"Erm?"

"Oh for God's sake," she huffed. "Put your fern down there," she said, pointing downward. Ron did. "Now, run through its positions with it." The fern had bowed, and its roots were coiling into legs. "Quickly, or it's likely to injure itself if it doesn't have a proper warm-up!"

"Um," Ron stammered, caught off-guard. "Um, first position?" The fern's fronds separated, forming two limbs, and it lifted its . . . arms, or whatever . . . over its head, forming a delicate circle, its legs snapping together smartly. "Second position," he continued, without prompting. The fern spread its stance slightly, but otherwise didn't budge. "Is that right?" he asked Pansy, his brow furrowing. God, how he hated girly plants.

"It'll do," she sniffed.

"Right, then. Third position?" The fern rustled and Ron assumed it knew what it was doing henceforth. "We're to harvest the roots?"

"That's right," she said, coaxing another Arabesque fern from its pot. "And we're to do this entire table, so you'd better get busy. There's no way I'm doing this all myself." She paused, crinkling her nose. "What's that smell?" she asked, put off.

"Huh?"

"It smells like sick!" Unexpectedly she leaned into him. "You smell like sick! Gross!"

He stepped back, regarding her loathingly. "Better than what you smell like," he said. He couldn't help himself; the words had just poured from his mouth.

She lifted her eyes to his, an eyebrow raising. "Excuse me?"

"I said, it's better than what you smell like." Flustered, he grabbed another fern; the pot dragged with it, and fell free as Ron swung the fern upward, crashing heavily to the ground.

"Really?" she asked, dangerously cool. "And what would that be, exactly?"

He held her gaze, suddenly finding her a mere annoyance more than any real threat of any kind. "I believe that would be ferret," he answered. "Exactly."

Her eyes narrowed. "You're disgusting," she said, turning from him.

"Pansy?"

They both whirled. Blaise Zabini was in the doorway of the Greenhouse, lounging casually against the frame, his arms laden with what looked to Ron to be leather pouches that could be rolled like a parchment, and tied shut. Blaise gestured toward the open door, and Pansy dusted her hands against her skirt, turning from Ron. "Mind your business," she quipped over her shoulder at Ron as she made her way over to Blaise. "We're to get all these ferns done, so get on with it!"

Ron watched her, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "I'm not clipping all these myself," he called after her. She folded her arm behind her, flipping him the bird from the small of her back before disappearing out the greenhouse door, Blaise Zabini alongside her. He stood, fern dangling from his hand, stunned. "Bitch," he said, disbelievingly. He dropped the Arabesque fern to the floor. "Just do your . . . positions or whatever," he instructed it, then made his way toward the entrance to the greenhouse. Poking his head outside he saw Blaise and Pansy huddling over a table Sprout stored outside, both their wands lit. Blaise was unrolling several of the leather pouches and handing them over to Pansy. She leaned over, extracting what was quite clearly some kind of herbological sample, bringing the tip of her wand to inspect it closely.

Ron eased out of the greenhouse, taking several steps forward before stopping. Motionless, he watched them, catching snatches of their conversation.

"I found this out in back of the castle, but there's also a patch by the thestral stalls--"

"--big is the patch--"

"--behind the castle's small, but I think the quality's better--"

"--you'll help me test the potency?"

Oh, Ron thought, everything suddenly making perfect sense. They -are- poisoning someone. His heart quickened, a genuine feeling of alarm coursing through him, then burgeoning further as he began to seriously consider whether this was not just a plot meant to off one person -- what if it was the entire school they were targeting?

Since the summer Ron had considered his final school year as a ticking clock of sorts, one that could never be re-wound, though. The alarm was set, but he didn't know for what time, and the days tick-tocked in the back of his mind, always, distracting and hollow and loud. He'd find himself glazing over in class, his stare fixing on Harry. Tick. Tock. Tick. And he'd look away, but there was always something else to capture his attention -- something non-academic, of course -- Harry; Harry's scar; Snape; Snape's left forearm, covered always with his thick, black robes; an endless rain of Phoenix feathers snowing silently in his mind; his mother; his mother's expectations; his own expectations; Hermione; the tiny mole on the back of Hermione's neck that might someday be blown off by a jet of green light; Malfoy junior; Malfoy senior; the last time he saw Cedric Diggory alive, fourth year; Sirius smiling; Percy smiling . . . Tock.

I need to go to Dumbledore, he thought, uncharacteristically calm. Dumbledore needs to know. The Slytherins are plotting. The Slytherins are fucking -plotting-, and no one'll be safe now, 'cos they'll -do- it, they will . . . His reverie was broken.

"--Weasel?"

"Huh?" He started, lifting his eyes. Pansy and Blaise were staring at him sullenly.

"Do you mind?" Pansy growled, flipping the leather pouches over on themselves. "If we wanted an audience, we'd have invited you, arsehole!"

For a moment Ron was confused as to what she was referring. His ears flamed again. "Audience? Er." As the question tumbled from his mouth he caught himself. "Oh. Oh! Audience. Right. No, I was just--" He thumbed back toward the greenhouse. "The ferns, Parkinson. Don't think I've got quite the right touch," he finished lamely.

She swept her eyes from his feet to the top of his head, and then back down again. "Imagine that," she said. "Leave off, Weasel. I'll be there when I'm ready. Mind your own bloody business, and leave Blaise and me alone!"

Ron's eyes darted to Blaise Zabini, who shrugged mysteriously. "As moscas do hamburger na noite," Blaise said, staring knowingly at him. Ron backed toward the greenhouse door.

"Dumb Italian," he muttered, turning, and leaving them be.