Not So Bad After All
(a Harry Potter fanfiction by Elanor Gamgee )
Author's Note: None of this belongs to me, except the
situation, which was inspired by an actual exchange
with my husband when he finally read a certain series
of books that I love (guess which series!). All
characters belong to the inimitable J.K. Rowling. This
story takes place somewhere in fifth year, at a time
when the threat from Lord Voldemort is minimal enough
to warrant worrying about more frivolous things. :)

***
Hermione was sitting at the Gryffindor table, The
Founders of Hogwarts propped open in front of her
against the milk jug, when Harry finally turned up for
breakfast.
"Good morning," said Hermione cheerily as Harry sat
down across from her. "Where's Ron?"
Harry rolled his eyes and began piling bacon on his
plate. "Overslept again. He's coming. That's why I was
running late though--took me forever to get him to
wake up."
"Was he up late again?" said Hermione in surprise. "He
must really be taking his keeper position seriously,
to spend so much time working on the strategies."
"Yeah," said Harry through a mouthful of toast. "I
didn't hear him come in last night. I don't know how
late he was up."
"It's good to see him really get involved in something
though," mused Hermione.
Harry shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."
Ron entered the Great Hall, running his fingers
through his sleep-tousled hair. He spotted Harry and
Hermione, and came over to sit with them.
"Good morning," said Hermione, amused as she watched
Ron's face split into an enormous yawn.
"M-ooooor-ning," said Ron through the end of his yawn.
Hermione noticed that Ron was developing dark circles
under his eyes. He really needs to get more sleep, she
thought.
"Were you up late again working out Quidditch plays?"
asked Hermione, trying to keep the
you-should-take-better-care-of-yourself edge out of
her voice.
"What?" said Ron, looking confused. "Er--yeah, so
what?"
"Nothing," said Hermione, pursing her lips and turning
back to her book. She didn't feel like getting into an
argument over nothing this morning.
Ron fell to silently devouring his breakfast. Harry
glanced over at him, then at Hermione, looking uneasy.
Hermione knew that he had grown increasingly
uncomfortable with his two friends' arguments, and
often tried to distract them before the sniping could
start.
"What are you reading now, Hermione?" he asked, more,
Hermione thought, to change the subject than because
he was at all interested.
"It's called The Founders of Hogwarts," she said,
holding up the book so that they could see the cover.
"It's quite interesting," she paused here to wait for
Ron's usual derisive snort, but it didn't come. She
supposed he was too fascinated with his breakfast to
bother. "But I don't think it's quite as
well-researched as Hogwarts, A History. That's still
the best book on the topic, I think."
Hermione was shocked to see Ron nodding seriously next
to her. Expecting a sarcastic comment, she turned to
him, eyes narrowed. "What?" she said defensively.
Ron, strangely, didn't even seem to realize what he
had been doing. He looked at her in surprise,
swallowed a mouthful of food, and said, "What's with
you?"
Hermione eyed him suspiciously, not sure what was
going on. She returned to her book, still inclined to
watch him rather warily.
Harry was looking back and forth between them, a
confused expression on his face. They were all silent
for a moment.
"Ugh, Divination first thing this morning," Harry
said, clearly trying to change the subject again. "The
thought of climbing all those stairs...I wish I could
just Apparate up to the classroom."
Hermione raised her head and opened her mouth to utter
her usual response to such a suggestion, but,
unbelievably, Ron beat her to it.
"Harry," he said distractedly, buttering a slice of
toast. "You can't Apparate in or out of Hogwarts,
everyone knows that."
Hermione and Harry both stared at Ron, open-mouthed.
Hermione was beginning to wonder if Ron had been taken
over by some book-reading spirit.
Book-reading? A suspicion began to form in Hermione's
mind, but it was so ridiculous, she could barely even
contemplate it.
Ron, meanwhile, seemed to have realized that they were
staring at him. He looked up defiantly. "Well, it's
true," he said, taking a bite of toast.
"Ron," said Hermione slowly, "have you been reading
Hogwarts, A History?"
"No," he said, looking straight at her. "I don't need
to--you've read it enough times for all of us,
remember?"
Hermione relaxed a little as the world as she knew it
fell back into place. "I thought not. I mean, I knew
you wouldn't really appreciate the whole--"
Ron raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh, I wouldn't, would
I? All right then, if you're so smart, how did the
fifth Headmaster die?"
Hermione stared at him, completely unnerved. "What?"
"You heard me. The fifth Headmaster died violently.
How did he die?"
Hermione was completely distracted. One part of her
was thinking How does he know to ask that? How does he
know the fifth Headmaster died violently? and the
other part was racking her brains thinking How did the
fifth Headmaster die? She knew that she should know
the answer to this question, and the thought of being
upstaged by Ron on a question from Hogwarts, A History
was too much to bear. But her complete disorientation
at Ron's sudden knowledge was making it difficult to
think.
"It was...right after the 23rd Goblin rebellion..."
said Hermione, thinking out loud. 
Ron smirked at her. "Yes, I know that. But how did he
die? Don't avoid the question."
"Er...hang on a minute..." Hermione reached into her
bag and pulled out her copy of Hogwarts, A History. "I
know it's in the fourth chapter," she said, flipping
through pages intently. Across the table, Harry was
staring at Ron incredulously, his breakfast apparently
forgotten.
"...and it was right after the Goblin rebellion..."
said Hermione absently.
"You've already said that," Ron reminded her.
Hermione gave him a look. Then she continued to flip
through the pages. Now that the question had been
asked, she couldn't rest until she knew the answer.
But it was completely distracting to have Ron looking
at her with that knowing grin on his face.
"Got it!" said Hermione triumphantly, locating the
reference. "The fifth Headmaster, Bartholomew
Higgbottom, was killed by a Nundu while on holiday in
East Africa. There!"
Ron smirked again. "I know."
Hermione looked up at him, her suspicion back now that
her need to answer the question was past. "How did you
know that? How did you even know to ask that?"
"I guessed," said Ron, popping a piece of bacon into
his mouth.
The world seemed to have turned upside down again.
This wasn't at all how things were supposed to be, and
she rather felt like Alice gone through the
Looking-Glass. Had she talked that much about
Hogwarts, A History, that Ron knew such details
without reading it? Or were the things in that book
common knowledge? None of these thoughts seemed to
offer a satisfactory explanation, however.
Hermione cocked her head and looked at Ron. "You've
read this, haven't you?" she said, her voice sounding
more accusatory than she intended.
"No!" said Ron with a maddening grin. "No, I told you,
I just guessed."
Hermione leaned away from him warily. She had no idea
what was going on. "Er...well, all right, if you say
so." Hermione put her book back into her bag and stood
up distractedly. "I'm going to Study of Ancient Runes
now. I'll see you two later..." 
Still feeling off-kilter, Hermione made her way across
the Great Hall to the doors. As she left the table,
she heard Harry saying, "What was that all about?" and
Ron answering, in the same strange voice he had used
with her, "Nothing."
Once in class, Hermione tried to shake off the
lingering odd feeling from breakfast. Fortunately, the
runes they were studying were especially complicated,
so it forced her to focus on something besides Ron's
newfound knowledge. In fact, by lunchtime, she was
sure the whole experience had merely been some strange
hallucination, as Ron was acting completely normal.
For once, she was actually happy to hear him talking
with Harry about Quidditch; it was reassuring,
somehow.
The afternoon, too, passed without incident, though
Potions class was horrible as usual. At dinner,
however, something else happened to make Hermione
question her own sanity.
They had just started loading their plates with food
when Colin Creevey showed up at Harry's elbow, his
little brother Dennis in tow. 
"Harry!" said Colin, breathless as always. "Look what
our dad just sent us!" Colin held up a pair of Muggle
walkie-talkies.
"They're great, Colin," said Harry resignedly.
"They won't work here, you know, Colin," said Ron
off-handedly. "There's too much magic in the
air--they'll go haywire if you try to use them."
Hermione dropped her fork with a clunk. "That's
enough!" she said in exasperation. "You've read it!"
Ron looked up at her. "I have not," he said mulishly.
Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Fine," she replied,
crossing her arms over her chest. "Then you probably
don't know which House Quidditch player was falsely
accused of Quaffle-pocking during the 1910 final game
for the House Quidditch Cup either." She had purposely
picked something obscure, something that could only be
found in one of the later footnotes in the book; she
wanted to test her theory that he had read the whole
thing.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" said Ron,
but his eyes darted toward Professor Sinistra, who was
sitting at the staff table.
"You know!" said Hermione, staring at him. 
"I told you, I don't know what you're talking about,"
said Ron, turning slightly pink and looking away.
"Yes, you do! You looked at Professor Sinistra! You
knew who I was talking about!"
"No, I didn't," said Ron.
Hermione eyed him again, more sure than ever that she
was right. "OK," she said, a rather cruel thought
forming in her mind. "Then how about this one: What
kind of creatures were used to guard the castle during
the Goblin Rebellion of 1456?" She was sure the
thought of giant spiders would get a reaction out of
him.
Ron went very pale and didn't answer.
"A-ha! You have read it!" said Hermione far too
loudly, pounding a fist on the table. Gryffindors up
and down the table were now looking at her as if they
thought her insane.
"No, I haven't!" Ron practically shouted.
Hermione stared at him. "Why won't you tell me?"
Ron looked at her quickly. "Because there's nothing to
tell." With that, he stood up and stalked out of the
Great Hall.
Hermione looked over at Harry, who looked like he
wasn't sure what had just happened. Colin and Dennis
seemed to have crept away while she and Ron had been
arguing. 
"What was that all about?" said Hermione out loud.
Harry just shook his head and went back to eating his
dinner.
Hermione finished her own dinner in silence. She was
certain she was right, and she was also certain that
Ron didn't want her to know she was right. But she
would be happy to hear that Ron had read her favorite
book, didn't he realize that? Why wasn't he telling
her the truth? Why was he being so pig-headed? And why
did it even matter to her?
Hermione went to the library after dinner, and stayed
late. She didn't feel like facing Ron in the common
room; she wasn't sure what she would say.
When she did return to the common room, she saw Harry
and Ron sitting in the corner, playing chess. She sat
down cautiously at their table.
"Having a good game?" she asked lightly.
"Yeah, Ron's beating me, as usual," said Harry with a
grin.
"But with every loss, you learn, Harry," said Ron in
an uncharacteristically wise tone, not looking up from
the board.
Hermione watched his red head bent in concentration
for a moment. He seemed to feel as awkward as she did.

Abruptly, Hermione stood up. "Well, I'm going up to
bed. Goodnight."
The boys wished her goodnight (Ron still not looking
up), and Hermione went up to her dormitory. She still
felt as though she had been through a slight
earthquake today; the world seemed to have changed
under her feet. As she changed into her nightgown and
got into bed, she thought about Ron. She felt as
though she had been presented with a whole new side of
him today, and she wasn't quite sure how to react to
it. But why had he acted so strangely with her? She
pondered these thoughts as she drifted into sleep.
Hermione never knew what it was that made her sit
straight up in the middle of the night. It was
pitch-black in the dormitory, and when Hermione pushed
back the curtains of her four-poster bed and looked at
her bedside clock, she found that it was three o'clock
in the morning. Why am I awake? was her first,
incoherent thought.
Then she heard something--a soft, unintelligible
murmuring. At first she thought that perhaps one of
her roommates was talking in her sleep, but it sounded
more distant than that. She wondered if this sound had
been what had awakened her, but it was so soft that
she doubted it.
Hermione slipped out of her bed and found her
dressing-gown in the dark. Wrapping it around her, she
left the dormitory and listened for the sound again.
It seemed to be coming from the common room.
Wondering vaguely if Ron was up late again working on
Quidditch plays, Hermione crept down the stairs. She
stopped in the doorway, shocked at what she heard.
A wheezy voice carried across the common room. "...and
when Gryffindor had finally succeeded in removing
Slytherin from the school, there was much rejoicing.
It was determined that Slytherin House would remain
part of the school, as it had been since the founding.
With Slytherin gone, the remaining Founders were
finally able to turn to more personal matters..."
Hermione peeked around the corner of the doorframe,
and saw Ron sitting in one of the squashy armchairs by
the dying fire, his eyes closed. A battered library
copy of Hogwarts, A History was open on the table next
to him, and his wand was suspended over it, moving
back and forth across the page.
"You've been listening to it!" Hermione said, stepping
into the room.
Ron's eyes snapped open, and he reached over and
grabbed his wand, stopping the wheezy recitation in
mid-sentence. 
"You've been listening to it," Hermione repeated,
walking over to stand in front of him with her hands
on her hips. "Why wouldn't you tell me?"
Ron looked at her defiantly, crossing his arms over
his chest. "Because I knew you'd act so weird about
it."
"Weird?" said Hermione incredulously. "You finally
read my favorite book, and you don't think I'd be
happy about it?"
Ron looked at her uncertainly for a moment. Then he
uncrossed his arms and twirled his wand with a grin.
"Well, I wasn't lying earlier. You asked me if I'd
read it, and I hadn't. Technically, I've only listened
to it."
Hermione found herself grinning back at him. "What did
you use? The Aura Libris spell?"
Ron nodded. "Yeah. I only started listening to it
because I couldn't sleep one night," he said
sheepishly. "You'd left your copy down here and I
reckoned it would put me right out..." Hermione
frowned, but Ron went on, "Only it didn't. Parts of it
can be almost interesting, you know? And then of
course you carry your copy with you everywhere, so I
had to go check one out of the library. Embarrassing,
that was."
Hermione knew he was only griping for the sake of
griping. She sat down in the chair across from him,
smiling into the fire. No matter what he said, he must
have liked the book if he had been staying up late to
listen to it. He was just too stubborn to admit that
he liked something that she had suggested.
Something occurred to her. "I thought you'd finished
it though," she said suddenly. "You knew the bit about
Professor Sinistra, and that's near the end."
"I have," said Ron off-handedly.
"But the part you were listening to just now is near
the beginning," said Hermione, looking at him in
surprise.
Ron blushed. "Well, that's one of my favorite parts,"
he said quietly. "I was just listening to it again."
Hermione stared at him for a moment, then began to
smile. "That's one of my favorite parts too," she
said. The world must be shifting, she thought. We
agree on something.
Ron looked at her uncertainly, than started to grin
too.
"But I thought you said it was only 'almost
interesting'," said Hermione teasingly.
Ron's grin grew wider. "Yeah, well, it's not so bad
after all, I guess." He reached over and tapped the
page with his wand, muttering, "Aura Libris". He let
go of his wand, and it remained suspended over the
page, beginning its wheezy recitation where it had
left off earlier.
"...the lives of the remaining three Founders would be
forever linked, and their friendship was renowned
throughout the wizarding world..."
Hermione looked over at Ron, who had leaned back and
closed his eyes again. He seemed to feel her watching
him, and opened his eyes. He gave her a smile and a
tiny wink. Hermione smiled back, then settled into her
cozy armchair and let the words wash over her. She
still felt as though the world had shifted on her
today, but she was also sure that it had landed
exactly where it was supposed to be.