Chapter 8
Ron confronts Harry and Hermione right outside the portrait guarding the Gryffindor rooms the same day, keeping his arms crossed over his chest the entire time. He stares at them as they walk up the stairs, and steps away from the wall he had his back to when they’re standing on the same level as he. Harry’s gut sinks; he recognizes the anger directed at both Harry and Hermione this time.
“Hello, Ron,” Hermione starts the confrontation with a stiff tone, recognizing something off about the situation. Harry stifles the urge to grab her hand for comfort. This need for physical closeness is new, as it started with Harry’s near death by a furious mother dragon, and Harry isn’t sure if Ron knows about it. This seems like the wrong time to bring his attention to it. “Were you waiting for us?”
“Yeah,” Ron confirms. He barely takes half a breath before jumping into accusations. “I saw you talking with a Slytherin in the library.” So that’s what this is about.
Hermione jumps to explain. “He had a book we needed to borrow,” she tries to continue, but Ron interrupts her.
“There’s that too, the studying together, constantly.” Ron raises his voice, and Harry wants to shush him before he draws people out of the common room with his near-shouting and makes another scene. But he doesn’t. “First Harry, you protect Malfoy, and now both of you are constantly busy in the library and apparently speaking with the kind of people who hate people like Hermione.”
Hermione winces, and Harry’s desire to tell him to shut up grows too high. “Shut up, Ron,” he snaps, just under the volume that Ron grew to. But Harry wants this to go well, doesn’t want Hermione to lose her friendship with Ron like Harry’s almost certain he has. So when Hermione lays a hand on his shoulder, he goes quiet to let the more emotionally in tune of the two of them speak next .
“We really did have to borrow a book from him, Ron,” she reassures, unsuccessfully.
“Who’s he?”
Harry glances at Hermione, trying to tell her with that one look that it definitely isn’t a good idea to reveal Nott’s name if Ron doesn’t already know it. The Slytherin is a very private person, and won’t enjoy having to participate in a confrontation with Ron, and then whatever amicable relationships they’ve formed with Nott will be blown to pieces. Hermione seems to know this though, and her eyes are guilty with refusal.
Ron’s expression grows stonier as neither of them rat out Nott’s identity. “If you’re coming to us out of concern for me,” Hermione says carefully, maybe trying to redirect the direction this conversation is going. “Thank you, but he was perfectly civil despite what he or the people he lives with may think.”
Except, it doesn’t work, and Harry’s heart hurts for Hermione with Ron’s following statement. “I won’t be friends with people who keep secrets from me.” Ron uncrosses his arms and walks towards them. Harry steps in front of Hermione without meaning to, and Ron’s attention shifts to him, and stops his physical advance. “And I’m not friends with anyone who thinks people who hate my family and my friends deserve to be protected.”
Harry isn’t sure if biting through his tongue to keep quiet is worth it, at this point, but Hermione lowers her head and makes a final decision first anyway. “Then leave, Ron. You don’t have to be friends with us.” She lifts her head back up to look him in the eyes. “We aren’t wrong to have our own opinions, nor to have separate lives from you sometimes, and if you’re going this route, I must inform you I can’t be friends with you and Harry separately.”
Ron’s anger falls off his face, but his posture stays tense. “So you’re choosing him.” Hermione nods.
“I am.” She agrees simply.
Ron hesitates for a minute, but turns his back to them and enters the common room with only a, “Goodbye, Hermione,” and nothing to Harry, which accomplishes two things: cementing Harry’s certainty that their friendship already ended, and making Hermione cry once he is out of sight.
Harry pulls her towards his shoulder so she can bury her face in it, and considers that they’re still right outside the Gryffindor tower, and have been lucky so far to have no one run across them. “How much longer do we have until curfew, Hermione?” He knows she’s always obsessively aware of the time, and he’s hoping the question will distract her long enough to move them somewhere more private.
“A little over two hours,” she sniffles. “Why?”
“How do you feel about dark, enclosed spaces?” Hermione looks at him puzzledly. “I know of a great place to cry. Fair warning, it’s also apparently Nott’s alcove and he’s run across me there twice.”
Hermione wrinkles her nose. “I don’t hate them, but,” so that’s a no, then. “Can we go find Hagrid, instead?” Harry gives his agreement quickly. It has been a while since they’ve visited him, being so busy, even if voluntarily, and with his disappearing stint after Rita Skeeter’s article exposing him as a half giant, it’s only been recently that they can even find him.
Fang greets them at the doorway of Hagrid’s hut, and Hagrid’s predictable, “Back Fang, back!” washes over Harry warmly. Hermione’s hand, held in Harry’s, unclenches slightly, and Harry is happy they came here.
Hagrid invites them to come inside and sit down, and they both shake their heads, choosing to run at him and hug him with a force that would topple an ordinary human. “Ah, it’s one of those days, I see.” Hagrid wraps an arm around each of them, and offers, “I can make ‘e rock cakes if ya want ‘em?”
“No thank you, Hagrid,” Hermione decides in a watery voice. She’s made it all this way without crying again, and now they’re with their gentlest friend, she lets her emotions out.
Hagrid makes a noise that sounds a little frightened, so Harry tells him what’s going on, recognizing that this is the first time any of them have cried in front of him, even including the first time Malfoy used a slur against Hermione. “Ron isn’t our friend anymore,” Hermione doesn’t take her face out of Hagrid’s clothes, but Harry looks up at him so his voice isn’t too muffled as he speaks.
“Well that’s not right’” Hagrid proclaims. “You three have been thick as thieves since firs’ year, what happened?”
Harry and Hermione let go of him, and Hagrid gestures them to follow him inside. They take the chairs at his table, and turn them to face Hagrid’s couch, which he plops down on.
Hagrid already knew of the arguments between Ron and Harry this year, having found out about the second one the same day he came out of hiding, noticing their awkwardness around each other during Care of Magical Creatures. But this is completely new, and they’re left trying to skirt around the whole maybe-prophecy thing from Trelawney when they explain their constant presence in the library, and how that led to them speaking with Nott, a Slytherin.
“Was it Malfoy?” Hagrid asks when they tell him that seeing Harry and Hermione with a Slytherin in the library was the last straw for Ron.
“No,” Hermione answers.
“And he didn’t like that we wouldn’t tell him who it is,” Harry adds after a second. Hagrid grunts and stands up to take a whistling pot of tea off his stovetop.
“I can see why ‘e might be upset about that.” Hagrid strokes his beard. “Growing up with all those brothers of his, an’ now being left out of your lives. Course, I canno’ speak for ‘im, but he probably feels he isn’t important enough for you anymore. Feels neglected.” Hermione nods her head.
“I thought so too, but…” since she doesn’t continue, Hagrid does.
“But yer entitled to yer secrets. Everyone is, s’long as they’re not hurting anyone, tha’ is.”
And, Hagrid would know about that, wouldn’t he? He’s kept his inheritance secret from most everyone for decades, and ran away for a time when it was revealed.
They move onto lighter topics for the rest of the visit, and the laughs they share and the updates on Hagrid’s creatures settles them. The hurt from Ron’s withdrawal from their friendship still hurts, but it’s dulled a bit, knowing for sure that Hagrid stands with them.