Long Road Towards Maturity

This situation was not going to end well…

***

Well, I better get ready to head of to the dungeons.

Until next time,

L.A. Lovegood

***

How can a bloke have faith in a Higher Power That Means Well, when he has to do this stuff!

Ron had first been relieved when he’d heard he had detention with Hagrid, though he was a little nervous about getting sent into the Forbidden Forest… He never really got over his fear of spiders, and he really wasn’t in the mood for an encounter with one of Aragog’s offspring.

Imagine his relief when they were assigned to look after the garden with the Halloween Pumpkins! They were supposed to get treated against some kind of stupid magical ailment, Ron had forgotten the name of, and rub them with some kind of cream.

Relief was quickly replaced by worse feelings… Though the cream looked like whipped cream when Ron had first seen it, it smelled worse then sweat-drenched socks that had soaked in a bowl full of rotten eggs…

It was disgusting, and he had only done half a pumpkin before he’d lost his dinner…

The fact that they were just at the edge of the Forrest did nothing to sooth Ron’s nerves, and at the slightest rustling of the bushes, he imagined it was the noise of scattering spider legs…

Lastly, his annoying younger sister had been pestering him ever since Hagrid had left them alone… She demanded to know what was going on with Hermione and him. But he couldn’t answer that, now could he? And the worse thought was, that normally, as any normal bloke, he wouldn’t even want to talk about it, but just the fact that he couldn’t talk about it, made him want to talk about it!

Argh! He was going to end up insane! Or worse: snogging Malfoy!

Finally he couldn’t hold it in any more, and snapped at his sister to shut her gob and ask Hermione! Of course this only served to make her more angry and annoyed, but at least she left it alone after shooting a few short explicits his way…

***

By the time Hagrid had come back to dismiss them from their detention, Ron had been so furious, he barely felt the relief of finally being able to escape the torment. Actually, there was one thing that had popped into his mind and he couldn’t shake it from his thoughts since…

He could talk about it with Looney…

The thought struck him as a bolt of lightening in a clear sky. Of course he had known of that possibility, he just hadn’t thought of it in terms of reality… This was a sure sign he was totally going to lose it. Get bloody real! Talking it over with Luna ‘Looney’ Lovegood?

He’d rather have Madam Pomfrey force-feeding him Skelogrow… Well maybe not, but still.

Why couldn’t he just bash Hermione’s skull with her Hogwarts: A History and get it over with? Oh, that was right: despite the none too tolerable things she’d done lately, she still was his best friend.

Ron had vowed a long time ago he wouldn’t be pigheaded enough to ever let anything come between his two best friends and him, just like he would never bail on his family like Percy had done… And besides, Hermione had probably saved his life a lot more times then he had hers: that was just not something Ron Weasley would disregard easily.

Hell, because Ferret-Boy was responsible for saving Ginny, Ron even tolerated him over the summer. Well, sort of…

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t too happy with that best friend at this moment… Oh, well, that still left Luna to confide in…

Ron cringed: there he went again! Someone must’ve slipped him a ‘focus-on-the-Looney’ potion, because there was no way he’d thought of the crazy girl two times already in less then an hour!

***

The detention from hell was still fresh on Ron’s mind the following morning. He hadn’t gotten much sleep, and that pesky thought had been playing in his head over and over again. He had tried reasoning with himself: he was a bloke, guys don’t need to talk about their feelings! They put up a brave front and don’t care about emotional stuff.

And why would he want to talk to Looney Lovegood, anyway? It wasn’t only the fact that she was a girl and younger than him: she was Looney for Merlin’s sake!

But some crazy part of him had let this sudden need to speak with someone grow into a battle against an obsession to get to bear his soul to the silly girl! Of course he blamed the twins: they had tested all their prank stuff one too many a time on their kid brother …

At the breakfast table he exasperated himself by stealing candid glances towards the Ravenclaw table. The poor defenceless food got the brunt of his frustration…

On a brighter note, Hermione and Ginny seemed to be back being good friends. The smiles towards each other, and the more or less worried glances they threw at him, made him suspect Hermione had told his sister at least part of the story.

For a brief moment he held Hermione’s gaze, lifting an eyebrow in question. A special nod-slash-shake confirmed his suspicion that she hadn’t told Ginny the whole truth. Before he could let his mind wander on what Hermione’s version could have been, he was struck by the familiarity of the unspoken communication between them.

It suddenly struck him how profound the friendship between Harry, Hermione and him really was. Of course he knew they had been best friends like forever it seemed now, but what they had between them was actually rare.

Something told him there was the key to the solution of his recent problem with Hermione. Is it because she wanted to preserve that special friendship between them all? Was that why she had ignored his crush for all that time? And why she went to enormous lengths to keep Harry from knowing what she felt for him?

But that was just insane!

Arghh! There he went again! All that introspect wasn’t good for him. He’d rather someone pointed at the villain so he could go straight ahead and punch his lights out. This inner soul-searching-thing wasn’t for Ron Weasley.

With a solid nod of the head, he started paying due attention to his beloved food, and participated in the Quidditch talk around His House’s table.

No sooner had Ron really gotten into the discussion of why the Chudley Cannon’s Keeper really was one of the best players out there, despite appearances, or he was confronted by the school gossip. He had all but forgotten, but the alleged romance between him and Hermione, was what had started the Pansy disaster in the first place, and the wench had taken gossip to a whole new level from there on.

Ron suspected the female giggling and the male lewd smirks had been going on for a while now, but he’d just been oblivious to it. That is, until Dean and Seamus came to sit on each side of him. He was still annoyed at them both for their remarks from last night, but he’d learned the hard way, many times before now, that it wasn’t the greatest idea to start a scene in the Great Hall.

Vaguely Ron saw Ginny being the centre of a group of giggling girls, talking animatedly. If he would’ve noticed all of them glancing his way every now and then, he would’ve paid closer attention. As it was, he was dealing with other worries right now.

Trying to ignore his two classmates he concentrated on his food. But it was hard not overhearing the discussion Dean and Seamus had, which was obviously for his benefit.

“Dude, did you hear about what Pansy said about our King?”

“Totally, man! That’s so cool the reputation our dude has now. And it’s even better that it comes from a Slytherin bitch, you know. It totally reflects on all of us, Gryffindor dudes!”

“Sweet, now it’s like: Gryffindor stands for studs… We are so going to run this school this year!”

Ron tried to keep his calm, but the conversation made him recall those totally disgusting memories, he rather just forgot. Before he could explode however, he felt someone lean against him. Startled, he found his two roommates making place for the Patil twins. Behind him was Lavender Brown.

Ron gulped when one of the twins, Parvati, since she had the Gryffindor emblem on her robes, put a hand over his. He felt crowded by oestrogen and he desperately looked for a safer place. They had him surrounded however…

“Oh, poor Ron. We just wanted to say…”

“… if you ever need comfort…”

“… or anything else really…”

They each spoke, finishing each other’s sentences, creeping Ron out. And making him dizzy in the process of trying to follow who said what.

“Yeah, see, we heard about your terrible encounter…”

“… with the Slutherin shrew…”

“… we just want you to know…”

“… not all girls are like her…”

Now Padma had put her hand on his knee, and Lavender had brushed his hair out of his eyes. And if he didn’t know better Parvatti was making googly eyes at him.

“That’s right Ron, you really shouldn’t judge all the girls by that ‘thing’…”

 “… you’re way too cute to write of dating for now…”

“… yeah, that would be such a waste…”

Did they sound a little breathless, just now?

“We know you want to wait for that special someone…”

“… we really had no idea our Quidditch star was so romantic…”

“… you should have said something…”

Ron felt like a hunted animal trying to get away from his predators.

“But anyway, if you ever feel the need for…”

“… comfort…”

“… you know where to find us? Right?”

The three witches winked at him, and the only thing Ron was capable of doing was nodding his head shakily. When his vision cleared –the three ladies had left his side, leaving only their perfume to linger- he saw his sister holding both thumbs up, grinning maniacally.

Before he could get more thought in about that, his roommates slapped him heartily on his back. Even Neville joined in, curious about what had happened. In his befuddled state due to all the congratulations, Ron didn’t notice Neville getting a bit of a wistful expression when Pamda’s name was mentioned during the retelling of the Dean and Seamus’ ‘dude’-version.

***

The rest of the day pretty much evolved like another dimension story: younger girls he normally didn’t pay attention to, blushed when they crossed him in the hall. Their sudden fits of clumsiness around them made him notice them, though. He found a cheesy note in one of his books during Transfiguration, and some of the sixth year Hufflepuffs had been winking and giggling around him, asking about the possibility of a future career as a Quidditch star.

Ron cursed the day he’d actually wished the kind of fame Harry had. He’d always wanted to be popular, but this was insane! It didn’t make it any more tolerable that Malfoy seemed to find it extremely insulting that the girl population of Hogwarts had started to pine openly for the Weasel…

Ron had tried to get his sister to tell him what she’d said to have the whole rumour-mill turn in his favour… But all she’d let him know was: “It’s a girl thing, big bro, you wouldn’t understand. Besides, for some reason most of them already thought of you as ‘deliciously cute’. So I just gave them more reason to be open about it… So, just shut up and enjoy it before you ruin everything!”

Obviously, that didn’t tell him anything…

He had tried avoiding all of them by going to visit Harry as much as possible. His best friend tired after one chess game, and Ron tried to block out the vague feelings of panic and frustration surrounding the condition of Harry.

***

Please forgive the total inane Dean, Seamus talk, but I watched “Dude, where’s my car” last night for the very first time, and I just needed to get it out of my system…

So review, review, review, people!