#jealousronweasley

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Ron Weasley-Yule Ball Part 1

Lol this is probably really bad but here we are! 

It’d been towards the end of third year. It seemed the friend group was falling apart around you, Ron blaming Hermione for Scabber’s disappearance, Harry upset Hermione had the Firebolt confiscated, and Hermione a bundle of stress every minute of the day. The tension had driven a wedge between almost all of you. But you and Ron stayed just the same. You even got closer, you thought. And that night, Ron had been hopelessly searching for Scabbers in the hallway when you stumbled upon him. His red hair was mussed all about his head and he wore an old sweater Molly had made him. Your heart nearly tugged out of your chest as he softly clicked his tongue, calling for the rat.  

“Find anything yet?” You asked.  

Ron nearly jumped from the floor, swearing, before looking up at you. It took a moment before he responded and he stood. “No.” He swiped the dust off his sleep pants. “I shouldn’t bother anymore, right?” He paused. You didn’t know if he wanted you to answer. You took a step forward. “Harry says I shouldn’t. It was just a dumb rat, after all.”

“He,” you emphasized as you walked closer to Ron, “was your only friend and you know it.” You smirked up at him—it was crazy how tall he’d gotten over the summer holidays—and he scoffed, a concealed smile barely visible in the dark. “You’ll find him, Ron.”

“Not if Hermione’s demon cat ate him.” You stiffened at that comment. Though Hermione had been almost avoiding the group completely, you weren’t exactly eager to jump into her fight with Ron.  

“Let’s keep looking,” you said. “We’ll look as long as we have to. Dumb pest has to be around here somewhere.” Ron chuckled a little and again, your heart performed some Olympic level flips in your chest. You scolded yourself, and dropped lower to the ground, calling for Scabbers. Ron would never admit it, he’d much sooner damn the rat to the deepest pits of hell, in fact, but he was rather attached to Scabbers. You’d seen him plenty of times sneaking him into class in one of his robe pockets, passing him bits of cheese and dried fruit he’d kept from meals. It must have been killing him to not know where the rat was, let alone if it was still alive.  

You both searched in silence for well over an hour. It was rather boring, but every time you almost went to leave your eyes found the red-headed boy crouched beside you. Through the darkness you could see the furrowed brows, lip trapped between his teeth, and anxious eyes. Even if you didn’t have the stubborn affection for the boy, you couldn’t have left him like that. Eventually though, Ron stopped. The two of you had shuffled through dozens of hallways, far from the Gryffindor dormitories, and if Filch and that cat found you, you’d have detention for the next month at least.  

Ron turned to you, rocking from his shins to sit back against the wall. You maneuvered next to him. Your shoulders pressed together and you could hear his uneven breathing.  

“We should go back.” He turned his head to face you and it suddenly hit you how close you two were.  

“You sure?” You asked. Just a moment before you’d cursed your lack of self-control for keeping you out this late, crawling around looking for a mangy rat. Now though, you couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness this time with Ron would end.  

He nodded. “We can look tomorrow.” He smiled a little, and though you knew he wasn’t at all happy you two hadn’t found the rat, your heart beat a little faster at the promise of more time searching with him.  

“Sounds great,” you smiled back at him.

The walk back to the dormitories was silent, not because you two had nothing to talk about, but because you knew that if Filch found you there would be no late-night rat hunts for a very long time. You wouldn’t give up the chance to do this again for the world. Finally, you’d reach the common room, and as you began to walk up the stairs to your room Ron called your name.  

You turned with your hand still on the railing, “yeah?”

“Uh, thank you.” He stood behind a couch, his hands fidgeting on the back of it. “Thanks for the help. It was um,” he paused and you could feel your heart beating fast against your ribs, “less worse with you there.”

“No problem.” You smiled at him and continued up the stairs.  

Less worse? That was neither grammatically correct or anything close to what you’d been secretly hoping to hear. A seed of disappointment had blossomed in you, but it was hardly enough to overcome the whole evening. Even if Ron only thought of you as a friend, which had already been clear and was reinforced by the goodbye, tonight was enough. It was enough. You kept repeating that as you walked up the stairs and it almost completely appeased the ache in your chest.  

Hermione had been awake when you reached the room, waiting for you, and with the glow of the evening mixed with the pang of “less worse” hanging around you, you poured out all the feelings you’d been subject to since meeting the ginger on the first day of school.  

That had been a little less than a year ago. And Ron had only gotten more attractive, more all-consuming, and more unattainable. You never got to search with Ron again, as he found Scabbers just the next day, and neither of you had ever brought the night up again. If Hermione hadn’t been awake that night, you were sure you would’ve been convinced it was all a dream by now.  

Hermione sat beside you, bent over a book as she murmured the words aloud to herself. She still hadn’t touched her plate and already you, Harry, and Ron had finished your last helpings. This wasn’t altogether unusual, however. You smiled as you watched Ron eye the roast beef dish in front of him. He was sure to go back for more.

“’Mione,” Harry stretched back in his chair, “eat something or your stomach will be growling all through potions.” The brunette tossed him a look and set back into her book. He turned to Ron and grumbled something about Snape docking Gryffindor if her stomach does growl in class. You chuckled to yourself and started stacking your dishes, a habit Hermione had tried to instill in basically the entire student body, to make the house elves’ jobs easier during cleanup. It’d only really stuck with you.  

Ron frowned at his plate. “I asked a Hufflepuff to the Yule Ball today.” Crap. Hermione tensed next to you, turning from her book for the smallest split second to gauge your reaction.  

“What does she look like?” Harry asked, sipping from his glass of pumpkin juice. Harry didn’t know about your very unfortunate liking for Ron. It was better that way, sometimes you even wished Hermione didn’t know. It’d be much easier to forget if she wasn’t always checking in about it.  

Ron shrugged. “Blonde, short. I don’t know, she was the first girl I saw in the hallway.” Charming.  

“So,” you swallowed the unreasonable amount of dread in your throat, “did she say yes?” You shouldn’t be this worked up about this. He asked a girl he probably doesn’t even know the name of. Somehow, though, that makes the pressure in your chest twist tighter. He’d ask a stranger and not you.

“No, she has a date already. Going with some other Hufflepuff, had a stupid name.”  

You absolutely hated the way relief flooded through you. You despised it. Here was your best friend, upset, albeit ridiculously, that he couldn’t find a date, and you were happy he’d been turned down. It was awful. But you still couldn’t find it in you to feel badly about it.  

It was later that night, sitting on Hermione’s bed and talking with her as she proof-read her essay for the fourth time, you voiced a thought you’d buried deep inside of your mind.  

“Everyone’s in such a fuss about the ball,” Hermione dashed her quill through an offending phrase. “About a dozen girls asked me if I had a date.” She huffed a little, rolling her eyes. “As if that’s any of their business.”

You weren’t really that upset about all the attention the ball was getting. You might even have been one of the girls Hermione was complaining about if you would be going with Ron.  

“Jokes on them,” you said to her. “They’ll be stuck slow-dancing with some guy while you and I raid the desert table.” You winked at her. It’d been a long-standing joke and plan, partly to distract yourself from who you really wanted to go with, and mostly because Hermione was your absolute best friend, that the two of you would go to the ball together and only eat food, avoiding boys and dancing altogether. So, you were surprised at the way her neck and cheeks flushed.

“Unfortunately, I think we might have to factor at least one dance with a boy into those plans,” Hermione said. It took you a moment, but when you understand what she meant you almost screamed.  

“Hermione! You have a date?”  

“Yes, I do,” she smiled slightly. It was just like Hermione, to be calm, cool, and collected in every situation. But the teenage girl in her showed through as she set her quill down and smiled softly at you, a blush warming her face. “Victor Krum asked me this morning.”  

You couldn’t contain your grin as you tackled Hermione in a hug. You didn’t think she’d be necessarily happy at that response, but you could hear her laugh as you pulled away. She was really happy. “Hermione that’s great.”

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised!” She was smirking. “You’ve no faith in my feminine abilities.”  

You laughed. “I must say, I’ll miss you at the desert table, but I think being able to live vicariously through you as you dance with your Durmstrang will make up for it.” You’d meant it as a joke, but Hermione’s smile wavered.  

“Have you been asked yet?”

You laughed a little. “Ron hasn’t exactly mentioned anything, no.”  

“Y/N, I mean by someone else.”  

“Well, Nick Raywood did. But I said no.”  

“Oh, Y/N, why?”

You paused. You knew why not, you’d run it over in your head a million times before, but you also knew Hermione wouldn’t understand. She was your best friend though, and she was waiting for an answer. “Well, Ron doesn’t have a date yet.” Hermione frowned. She knew where this was going. “And, maybe if he can’t find one, he’ll finally ask me.” She opened her mouth, about to cut in. “And I know, ‘Mione, I know that it wouldn’t be a date. We’d go as friends and just hang out with you and Harry and everyone else but I’m okay with that. It’s enough.” You paused, repeating it in your head before repeating it again, aloud. “It’s honestly enough for me.”

“That’s not enough and you know it,” she said. “Y/N, you deserve better than a guy who only thinks of you as a friend. You deserve love.”  

You can feel your stomach turn and you paste a smile to your face, a joking tone to your voice. “Hermione, we’re still in school it’s really not that serious.”  

“You know what I mean.” And you did. As usual, she had a point and that point was absolutely right. “Wouldn’t you rather go to the ball with a guy like Nick who actually wants to go with you?”

“Maybe,” I said.  

Hermione looked down at her deserted essay. “I think we’re going to have to talk about something a little less dramatic if I’m ever going to turn this in.” You both chuckled a little, neither one completely past the conversation yet, but by the end of the night you’d fallen asleep with a smile on your face.  

The next day Harry and Ron were still searching for dates. Naturally, that meant Ron still hadn’t asked you. Nick Raywood was sitting at the Ravenclaw table, laughing with some friends thoughout dinner and you couldn’t help but glance over at him a few times. Nick was attractive and nice. The type of guy that was always uplifting the people around him. When he’d asked you earlier that week, he’d smiled and complimented your hair. He was nice, he was cute, he was interested.

And Hermione had never been wrong before, had she?

Your mind was made up just as the boys and Hermione stood to leave.  

“You coming, Y/N?” Ron asked, looking down at you. Hermione quickly scolded him and stacked his dishes up.  

“Um,” you watched Nick’s friends begin to leave. Nick was still sitting, finishing his dinner. If you stayed, maybe you could catch him alone on his way out. Save yourself any embarrassment of being turned down in front of people. “No, I have to uh,” your eyes searched the room, looking for some sort of excuse. Your eyes landed on the twins. “I have to talk to Fred about something.” Harry and Ron lifted their eyebrows, but didn’t say much. It wasn’t at all unusual for you to talk to one or both of the twins, but it was strange for you to actually have a reason to talk to them. If Hermione knew why you were actually staying she didn’t say, but she quickly ushered the boys to the common room and you were thankful for that.  

You felt vaguely stalkerish waiting for Nick to finish eating. You tried not to completely stare at him, but as you were no longer hungry and almost all of the Gryffindors around you had left, you were left with little else to do.  

It felt like forever before you saw Nick begin to gather himself up. You almost laughed when he stacked his dishes—Hermione must have gotten to him too. Quickly, you began leaving too and were glad when the few friends Nick was leaving with turned to opposite way in the hallway.  

You moved up so that you were walking next to him. “Hi, Nick.” You smiled up at him. He was taller than Ron. A little too tall, if you were being honest.  

“Y/N!” He grinned back at you.

“Uh, where are you headed?”

“Ravenclaw common room.” He high-fived an older Ravenclaw in the hallway before turning back to you. It was slightly unnerving how he walked, facing you, and didn’t run into anyone.  

“Oh, me too,” you said.

“You’re going to the Ravenclaw common room?” He looked genuinely confused.  

“Crap, uh, no. I mean mine. Gryffindor.” He let out a solid laugh and you chuckled a little. Crap, this was awkward. But Hermione was right. You had to do this.

“Uh, Nick, I have a kind of weird question.”  

“Ask away.”

“Do you have a date yet to the Yule Ball?”

He slowed to a halt. “Well, no.” He chuckled almost silently.  

You shouldn’t have been so disappointed. That was stupid, you thought. “Oh, um, well would you still like to go with me?”

For the first time in all your years at Hogwarts you say Nick Raywood frown. It was a very strange sight. “I asked you earlier this week if you wanted to go with me. Why didn’t you say yes then?”

You didn’t like lying. It wasn’t something you ever were okay with doing and your head had already begun to ache from lying to Ron earlier. But you couldn’t exactly tell Nick that you wanted to go with him to get over the guy that would never ask you to the ball. So, you lie. “I just, I was really nervous. I, um, never expected you’d want to go with me.” He still didn’t look sold. “I thought it was a joke, to be honest.”  

His eyes softened and he turned to face you completely. “I’m really sorry you would think I would do that. But I’d love to go with you, Y/N.” The two of you sorted out details of when and where to meet before going to the ball, and when you parted, he left a kiss on your cheek that made your skin crawl with guilt.  

When you returned to the common room, you found Harry and Ron upset, and a missing Hermione.  

“What happened to you two?” You ask, dropping into the seat across from them.

Harry’s arms were crossed. “How am I supposed to lead in the first dance with no date?”  

“Maybe you shouldn’t have turned all those girls down,” you said. He shot you a look. Beside him, Ron is frowning at you. “Ron?”

He didn’t respond at first, just uncrossed his arms and tucked his hands beneath his legs. “Will you go to the ball with me, Y/N?”  

You’d pictured him saying those words a hundred times in the past week. You’d even expected those words a few times. “What?”

You hated how collected he was. How put together and at ease. Nothing about this was scary to him but he’d been shaking asking other girls. “Go to the ball with me. You don’t have a date, I don’t have a date. Just as friends.” A part of you had almost said yes. Screw Nick, screw Hermione’s advice! Because Ron finally asked you to the ball. But those last three words crushed you. And though you’d been reminding yourself all night that you didn’t want to go with a guy who didn’t feel the same way, you finally understood why you couldn’t go with Ron.  

You’re not sure how you do it because it takes every last ounce of strength and will power in you, but you shake your head. “No, Ron. I have a date.”  

You don’t remember what he says or what you say as you trail up the stairs. You also don’t remember if the cries you heard as you fell asleep were Hermione’s or yours. Maybe it was both.  

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