Harry Potter and the Brotherhood of the Besotted

Chapter 9: Worse Than Failing Potions

The authors of Moste Potente Potions make special note, under their entry on Veritaserum, of the potion's soporific effect. It may have been the effect of the Veritaserum, it may have been the lateness of the hour that Ron returned to his dormitory, but for whatever reason Ron did not awake until nearly lunchtime on Sunday. To his relief none of the other boys were in the room when he awoke. Ron's memories of the previous night were still a bit of a jumble, but something sprang immediately to mind when he noticed the crumpled dark red velvet lying on the floor next to his bed. Ron Weasley was now the proud owner of an Invisibility Cloak.

Well, not a cloak exactly, he thought as he tried it on. Unfortunately, if you wore it in the ordinary way, your disembodied head and hands poked out from the invisible neckline and cuffs. However, Ron's robes had been second hand and he remembered his mum's fondness for buying things which had "a nice big hem, because you're growing so much, dear." He checked the skirt of his robes and realised that there was a good thirty centimetres of extra fabric there. Using an Unravelling Charm on the stitching around the hemline, he managed to lengthen the robes. He also undid some of the stitching around the cuffs, so that his hands were covered. Then, by pulling his head back into the neck hole, and crouching ever so slightly, he could make himself invisible. He also couldn't see a thing. Quickly, he turned the robes around so that he was wearing them back to front. He was then able to peer through the buttonholes.

Desperate to try out his new toy, Ron went into the Gryffindor common room. None of the fifth years were there, but Ginny was talking with Colin and Dennis Creevey. Ron crouched behind a couch.

"I still don't understand," Dennis was saying. "The weather's just about cleared and everybody said that Goyle was feeling better. How come they wouldn't let him play?"

"Madam Hooch was refereeing and she ruled him unfit. Crabbe too," Colin explained. "Apparently it's in the rules. Unfit to fly by reason of insanity."

"Of course the best thing about it," Ginny enthused, "is that Slytherin had to forfeit. They'll never get enough points to make the finals now." Ginny was looking directly at the couch and Ron instinctively ducked down. Then he remembered that he couldn't be seen. He stood upright and waved at the trio. He poked his tongue out at Ginny. He did a little dance from the couch to the notice board.

Standing at the notice board, his mind and memory gradually clearing, Ron saw the timetable for the medical examinations and aura readings that fifth year students would be receiving that afternoon. So that was why nobody was around. He checked for his name on the list, worried about whether he had missed his appointment time. His name had been crossed off. So had Hermione's.

Those two crossed out names brought Ron crashing back to reality. He felt miserable and hurried back to the dormitory. Some very unpleasant truths had to now be faced.

* * * * * * *

In the hospital wing, Harry Potter was also about to return to the real world. However, first of all, he needed to make some small talk with a cat. Harry was waiting for Professor Trelawney to read his aura, having already been poked and prodded by Madam Pomfrey. Crookshanks was sitting in front of the infirmary's supplies cupboard, a post that he had occupied since the morning. He appeared determined to guard its contents. Harry, while watching Crookshanks, had come to the conclusion that one of the ways he could prove his affection for Minerva was to make an extra effort to be friendly to her feline friends. "So Crookshanks," he started, awkwardly, "caught any good rats lately?"

Before Crookshanks had a chance to reply, Madam Pomfrey's office door opened and Professor Trelawney emerged. "Mr Potter," she said, "as foretold by the celestial powers, I shall see you next."

Harry had never had an aura reading before. If he had not been so blissfully, happily in love, he would have found the whole process rather intrusive. Sibyll Trelawney brought her face so close to Harry's that he could count the tiny, grey hairs growing out of her nostrils. She stared unblinkingly into his eyes and chanted dolefully, occasionally tapping him on one of his cheeks. Then she stepped back and drew a large circle around him in the air with her wand. The air within the circle glowed yellow. The Divination teacher looked quite excited by this, as yellow was always such a fine predictor of misery.

"You will know great sadness and shame, Mister Potter," she readily informed him. "The reading is complete, please drink the potion's antidote on the way out."

Harry sipped the medicine glass of purple liquid, then walked through the office door. Immediately, Trelawney's prophecy came true as Harry's perspective on the events of the last two days changed. Well, Harry thought, I suppose that's three predictions she's made now. He remembered some very important things about himself. He couldn't sing, he couldn't draw and he absolutely could not write poetry. He rushed back to the dormitory. There was a great deal of parchment he needed to destroy.

* * * * * * *

Sitting on his bed, still in his Invisibility Robes but with his head and hands protruding, Ron pondered the meaning of the two crossed out names on the list. The first thing Ron concluded was that he had obviously failed Potions. Why else would they not even bother to ask him to come up to the hospital wing? It must have been obvious to Professor Snape last night that the potion Ron had made had never worked. He'd be sitting next to Ginny and Colin next year, the tallest, dumbest kid in the class. He only hoped that Malfoy wasn't there as well. It was little consolation that Draco Malfoy, whiny little creep that he was, would still probably be one of the shortest boys in the class.

The second thing, altogether worse than the first, was that Hermione had gone and got herself expelled. Ron couldn't see what other options the school had. She'd force-fed the strictest teacher in the school something pretty nasty and also, as far as Ron could tell, had used an Unforgivable Curse on him. Ron marvelled at the overkill involved, since just one of those things could have sent her packing faster than you could say "Hogwarts Express." Still, Hermione was renowned for her thoroughness.

Ron realised that some things were worse than failing potions. Hermione had been his friend, not from day one admittedly, but from first year. He'd fought a troll for her and he'd burped slugs for her. He'd tried his hardest to protect her from all sorts of evils, Basilisks, werewolves, Malfoy, even Victor-bloody-Krum. It was so unfair that he had failed her now.

He wanted them to stay together - himself, Hermione and Harry too. George told him once that Angelina had been swearing at Fred since the first day of their first year at Hogwarts. That's what Ron wanted. Well, not to be sworn at - but to be nagged about his homework and to be cajoled into making study timetables and to be driven crazy by stupid facts from Hogwarts, a History, by Hermione, up till the day that they all left Hogwarts together. Maybe even after Hogwarts. Ron thought of his mum and dad, school friends who were still able to joke and argue together. They were still able to bother each other, the way two people who are very much in love can. That was definitely what Ron wanted.

But now they'd be snapping Hermione's wand in half for sure. She would have to go back to her Muggle parents, to a world that Ron frankly couldn't understand. He wondered if she would give up on magic altogether. He hoped she wouldn't end up like the other Muggles who stared at him at Kings Cross Station, like he'd dropped from outer space. Ron imagined Hermione Granger, years from now, sitting in one of those enormous Muggle skyscrapey buildings, typing on a computo and talking on a fellytone. She would forget her witchcraft and she would forget him. Ron' eyes began to sting and his nose ran. "Bloomin' heather," he said as he wiped his wet face on an invisible sleeve, not noticing that Neville's flowers had gone. Ron Weasley looked like the saddest disembodied head on earth.

Footsteps on the dormitory stairs caused Ron to pull his head and hands back into his dress robes. Dean Thomas came into the room, looking decidedly less enamoured than he had the previous day. He pulled his robes off and began to wave them out the window, then hung them to flutter in the wind while he hunted in his school trunk. He pulled out his Standard Book of Spells. Neville Longbottom, looking very sleepy but otherwise clear headed, came into the room as Dean was frantically turning pages.

"Help, Neville," said Dean. "I need a charm to get the smell of dead fish out of clothes."

"I can't help you there," yawned Neville. "Won't the house-elves wash them?"

"I don't want to wait that long," Dean complained. "I never want to smell fish again."

Neville took a nap while Dean continued his research. Ron, being in no mood for company, decided to stay invisible. He wished Harry would come back soon so he could tell him about Hermione and Professor Snape. Just thinking about Snape made Ron want to punch something. This whole mess had been the fault of that oily git from the very beginning. Ron lay very still on his bed, imagining ways to avenge Hermione by hurting Severus Snape, knowing that even a Cruciatus Curse would not be punishment enough.

Seamus was the next to come back into the room. He was carrying the tattered remnants of his Valentine's Day present for Lavender Brown, which Cho Chang had left in the infirmary for him to collect, "when he could be trusted."

Opening the parcel, Seamus groaned at the tartan monstrosity that used to be a black negligee. He found A Fashionable Witch's Guide to Dress Making and tried to undo the damage he had done, not at all helped by Dean's giggling. Working on the colour first, he transformed the garment from red and green tartan to black and khaki stripes. Optimistically, he said a spell that should have turned the nightdress entirely black. It turned entirely khaki instead.

"Well, at least it's all the same colour," Dean said encouragingly.

If the pattern and colour reversals had been disappointing, Seamus' spells to reduce the size of the nightdress were a disaster. Each time he pointed his wand, the fabric smoked around the edges but the garment only grew larger. After several attempts, the negligee was enormous. Harry Potter came back to his bedroom to find Seamus holding the nightdress up, its length having reached about two metres.

"Who's that for? Madame Maxime?" Harry asked mischievously. Then he looked around the room. "Has anyone seen Ron?"

Ron was beginning to realise some of the drawbacks of being invisible. He wanted to keep his Invisibility Robes a secret, just like Harry's Invisibility Cloak. So he could hardly just throw the thing off now and shout, "Surprise!" He also didn't want to risk leaving the room to take the dress robes off, because Harry had closed the door behind him. A door opening and closing by itself might cause suspicion, although in Hogwarts you could always blame that sort of thing on a passing ghost.

So Ron stayed hidden a little while longer, beginning to feel claustrophobic. He watched through his buttonholes as Harry started to collect the many scrolls littered about his bed. He was building a little pyramid out of them.

"Oh I give up," Seamus shouted, throwing the nightdress to the ground. He pointed his wand at it and said, "Might as well make the idiotic thing disappear."

"No, stop," Harry said suddenly. "Give it here." Harry folded the vast ugly negligee and put it on top of the pyramid. Then he said with mock seriousness, "You know, I've been wondering what Albus Dumbledore would say if he was here."

"I wish I was with Dumbledore," Seamus moaned. "It'd be better than facing Lavender."

"No, no," Harry continued, "that's the wrong attitude entirely. If Dumbledore was here, he would remind us that when you face your darkest hour, whether it's capture by Death Eaters or realising what a bloody awful poet you are, the thing that will pull you through is standing side by side with your comrades. We need solidarity, more than ever."

"You mean all for one?" asked Dean.

"And good for nothing," complained Seamus.

"Like the Order of the Phoenix," said Neville as he sleepily rolled over.

"Exactly," agreed Harry. "We need an order, or a brotherhood - the Brotherhood of the Besotted. We need to pledge to never remind anybody here of what a stupid twit they've been." With these words, Harry waved his wand so that the hideous, gigantic, khaki nightdress and the collected poems of Harry Potter were engulfed in blue flames. "Now," said Harry, "let us never talk of this weekend again."

[Authors Note: Despite the wishes of Harry Potter, we will learn more when Chapter 10, the final chapter, is ready for posting. It is currently with my beta reader. So do not panic - particularly you, Obsidea Greaves. All will be revealed, probably shortly after Easter.]