Dunderhead - A Harry Potter story: Snape becomes Harry's mentor

Chapter 38: The Circular Room

They went straight up into a bright room with long arched windows. They looked very similar to the ones in the Great Hall, though these looked cleaner and less gothic. In fact, the whole room looked new. It was very elegant, rather how Ron might have expected the Ravenclaw common room to look. However, as Ron studied the dark bookcase that curved around the room to line the whole of one side of the wall, surveyed the large dark marble table in the centre of the room, and glanced up to see the dim lighting, he decided that it was underlyingly Slytherin in taste.

"Do many people know about this place?" Ron asked as he turned to see that Mint had taken a seat on top of the marble table top and was swinging her legs easily, watching Ron with an expression of mild interest.

"No," she said shortly. "Look there." Mint pointed at the row of widely spaced windows.

Ron strode over to them and leaned forward to see whatever it was that Mint was pointing at. Words could not describe his thoughts when Ron saw that each window showed a different part of the castle's grounds. The far left window gave Ron a view of the whomping willow tree, while the one next to that showed him the forbidden forest. The final window of the three showed the Quidditch pitch. Ron could see that there were Hufflepuffs practicing on it. He snorted at the Captain's ineffectual tactics: there was no way that Zacharias Smith could divert the beaters of the opposite team while trying to do his job of seizing the quaffle. The boy was not a good multitasker.

"How does that work?" Ron demanded, not able to tear his eyes away from the Quidditch pitch. "How can I see a different part of Hogwarts in each bloody window?"

Mint let out a laugh through her nose and slid off the table to join Ron. "It's an enchantment." She explained. "I thought that you might like to make use of this place though." She suggested, watching Ron steadily.

Ron turned to her with wide eyes. "Why?" He said incredulously. Ron could see that Mint was relaxed in this space. It was evident that she spent a lot of her time in here, though there were no piles of parchment, stacks of books, or any other personal items lying around. He wondered if Mint simply cleaned up after herself every time. Ron knew that he would not have bothered.

"I think you'll be good company." Mint replied simply. "I'm getting rather tired of my own company and I think that you might be as well." She added, rather boldly Ron thought. "How long can you sit and listen to those two boys talk about Quidditch when your best friend isn't there to share the conversation with?" Mint asked Ron. "And how long can you get away with not doing your homework? How long will your teachers let you off with sympathy? Can you motivate yourself to start doing your work again when your study pusher isn't there to encourage you?" She tilted her head to the side, a knowing look in her eyes.

Ron's mouth was nearly open at the... the audacity this girl had. He bristled a bit at Mint's reference to Hermione as his study pusher. But she was quite right about it all. Ron could not continue to leave his homework and he could not afford to fail his classes out of worry for his friends' conditions.

"Why haven't you asked Luna to come here?" Ron retorted, unwilling to concede to Mint's observations of his current school life.

Mint snorted again, though her face was still quite serious. "I don't need to ask her. She'll follow me here when she thinks she needs to."

Ron grinned a bit and nodded, "Yeah I can see that." He admitted, smiling fondly at Mint's reference to Luna's intuitive character.

Ron turned to look out of the window again; the one that showed the quidditch pitch. He realised that the odd feeling that had been growing in his chest since Mint's admission was one of pleasure. He had been singled out. He must be interesting, he must have some kind of draw to him that had intrigued. Ron frowned. Then again, Mint had noticed Ron's loneliness and had decided to pair herself and Ron together, to share their mutual solitude together. Ron knew that he could have made the decision to seek out comfort himself, find other friends, other people. But he had not. And the reason for this, he knew, was that the absence of Harry and Hermione, his very closest friends, would only be felt acutely by him teaming up with people he was only friendly with. Seamus and Dean were good for talking to at breakfast about non-serious topics, but he couldn't talk to them about secrets, shared worries about the future of the Wizarding World, fear of loss in the war. He didn't have internal jokes with them like he did with Harry and Hermione, and Ron enjoyed a laugh. He could confess that he missed laughing.