Percy Jackson and the Department of Mysteries [Book 5]

33) Ron Might Be Unloved

On the last day of the holidays, we received our letters from Hogwarts. I was sitting on my bed, flipping through some of the cabin designs Draco made when Ron walked in holding them.

"Booklists have arrived,"  Ron tossed a letter to me, and one to Harry (he was standing on a chair, cleaning up Hedwig's nasty little owl turds). "About time, I thought they'd forgotten, they usually come much earlier than this..."

My letter felt heavier than usual, so I wondered if Dumbledore had stuffed another couple letters in there for me, detailing some spy mission or thing I had to do at school. When I opened it, I felt the blood leave my face, and my throat seemed to close up.

I hadn't anticipated this reaction to this, though I knew immediately why I suddenly felt like my world was flipped inside out.

Harry said something, but I didn't really hear him. I didn't hear Fred and George start talking as they Apparated in, either.

"Prefect?" Fred said incredulously, and I looked up, seeing a shocked look on Ron and Fred's faces. "Prefect?"

It looked like Ron had been made a prefect as well.

"No way," George leapt forward and grabbed Ron's envelope, turning it over above his palm. A scarlet prefect's badge tumbled into his hand.

"There's been a mistake," Fred grabbed Ron's letter and held it to the light, as if he were checking for a watermark. "No one in their right mind would make Ron a prefect..."

The twins looked at Harry in unison. Fred said, "We thought you were a cert!"

"We thought Dumbledore was bound to pick you," George said.

"Winning the Triwizard Tournament and everything!" Fred said. At that, Ron turned to look at me. At some point, I'd taken my own prefect's badge out of my envelope. It was yellow, and there was a black P in the center. I was reminded of when, in my first year, I had first seen Perry's own badge and thought it was a q. Then I was reminded of why I felt so sick when I looked at it.

"I suppose all that mad stuff must've counted against him," George turned to Fred.

"Yeah," Fred said slowly. "Yeah, you've caused too much trouble, mate. Well, at least one of you's got their priorities in right." He walked over to Harry, sending Ron a heated look. "Prefect... ickle Ronnie the prefect..."

"Oh, Mum's going to be revolting," George groaned loudly, shoving the badge back at Ron. Ron barely looked at the badge, he was still looking at me.

"Oh, not you, too!" Fred shouted, looking at me in horror.

"Well, he and Dumbledore do have this weird relationship," George said, not looking nearly as surprised to see that I'd gotten the badge (though he did look annoyed. "They gossip and I think they might knit together."

"We made matching socks," I said absently.

"Hey, are you all right?" Fred said quietly after a moment, seeing that Ron and Harry had stopped paying us much attention — Ron had handed Harry his badge in disbelief.

"Yeah," I said, frowning down at the badge. "Yeah, it's just, uh, last one of these I saw was on Cedric, he wore it into the maze as a good luck charm, I think. I, uh, just wasn't ready to see it, I guess. I'll be all right, I'll just throw it off the train or something. Dumbledore knows I'm not going to actually take points or anything."

The twins shared a look, then George said, "Dumbledore would know you wouldn't want to be prefect, so why'd he choose you?"

I frowned. That was a good point. Dumbledore knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't even want to look at the badge, so why would he choose me? "I'm... not sure."

Before we could say anything more, the door burst open, and Hermione rushed in. Her face was flushed and she was holding a letter in her hand, "Did you — did you get —?" She spotted Ron's badge in Harry's hand and shrieked, waving her letter around excitedly. "I knew it! Me too, Harry, me too!" She looked over at me, and saw my badge. "Oh, Percy, you got it too, I knew it!"

"No," Harry quickly shoved the badge into Ron's hand. "It's Ron, not me."

"It — what?"

"Ron's prefect, not me," Harry said, frowning slightly.

"Ron?" I swear Hermione's jaw almost hit the floor. "But... are you sure? I mean —" Her face turned deep red as she realized what she was saying.

"It's my name on the letter," Ron said defiantly, looking up proudly.

"I..." Hermione looked like her world had been tipped upside down. "I... well... wow! Well done, Ron! That's really —"

"Unexpected," George finished, but I didn't really understand why it was so surprising, why they had so greatly thought Harry would have gotten it instead. They got the same grades, and both were great kids. In fact, Harry got in trouble at school quite a bit more often than Ron did. Maybe it was because Harry was Harry, and had done great, heroic things? It was probably that. Harry faced Voldemort and lived, so he must've deserved it more (notice the sarcasm). They were both heroes, had similar grades, and were both fairly well liked. I would've placed it down to a coin toss if I didn't know Dumbledore was planning something.

"No," Hermione said, her face redder than I had ever seen it, "no, it's not... Ron's done loads of... he's really..."

"He was just as likely a choice as Harry," I said. "I'm fact, I thought it was going to be neither of them. I figured it would've been Seamus."

"He blows things up a lot," Hermione said.

"Yeah, and blowing things up is cool," I said. "But nah, he's got better grades than them both, and he's had his fair share of heroics outside of school. But he's never really seemed to pay attention to anything other than, uh, I can't say, he's yell at me. But, nah, we should probably trust the judgement of Dumbledore — he knows what he's doing. Hopefully."

We got snowed in on Saturday, which was annoying. Why wait until January to be terrible, weather? You could've given us a white Christmas, but noooooooo, it was 75°. And now we've got like six inches of snow. Hahahahhahahahha. I think the snow got to my head. For dinner I had old pepperoni (I didn't know it was expired until I'd already eaten some), a bag of chips, an orange, and an ice cream sandwich. I am the pinnacle of health. Nah but I'm not a fan of the snow. I like rain and wind is neat, but I think snow is annoying. Cold rain that makes me unable to leave the house or freezes our well or torments our poor animals... I don't like it. Blegh. Wow, a note from a later author, apparently we were not snowed in, and I'm just a dumbass. We didn't go to school because the roads were icy and we couldn't leave the driveway, but nahhhh, it's fine.

Anyway, I hope you guys have had a tuberculosis Monday, and I'll see you on Wednesday CT. Love ya!