Suffocating In Darkness

Chapter 13

None of us mentioned Ginny or Hermione again; indeed, we barely spoke to each other that evening and the boys went to bed in silence.

Oliver instantly turned to me. I instantly had to tell him the full story of us walking into Ginny and Dean snogging, the fight and how I think Harry likes Ginny. He's actually a good audience for once, not laughing until the whole story had finished. But I did get him to agree to not telling anyone what I had said, Harry would probably repeat it to Lyra and him anyway.

I awoke next morning feeling slightly dazed hoping that the whole Ron/Ginny argument had blown over, by midday he was not only cold-shouldering Ginny and Dean, but also treating a hurt and bewildered Hermione with an icy, sneering indifference. What was more, Ron seemed to have become, overnight, as touchy and ready to lash out as the average Blast-Ended Skrewt. The other four if us spent the day attempting to keep the peace between Ron and Hermione with no success; finally, Hermione departed for bed in high dudgeon, and Ron stalked off to the boys' dormitory after swearing angrily at several frightened first-years for looking at him.

To our dismay, Ron's new aggression did not wear off over the next few days. Worse still, it coincided with an even deeper dip in his Keeping skills, which made him still more aggressive, so that during the final Quidditch practice before Saturday's match, he failed to save every single goal the Chasers aimed at him, but bellowed at everybody so much that he reduced me to tears, saying some hurtful things about my past.

"You shut up and leave her alone!" shouted Oliver, who was about Ron's height, though admittedly carrying a heavy bat.

"ENOUGH!" bellowed Harry, who had seen Ginny glowering in Ron's direction and, remembering her reputation as an accomplished caster of the Bat-Bogey Hex, soared over to intervene before things got out of hand. "Oliver, go and pack up the Bludgers. Minnie, pull yourself together, you played really well today. Ron..." he waited until the rest of the team were out of earshot before saying it, "you're my best mate, but carry on treating the rest of them like this and I'm going to kick you off the team."

I really thought for a moment that Ron might hit him, but then something much worse happened: Ron seemed to sag on his broom, all the fight went out of him and he said, "I resign. I'm pathetic."

"You're not pathetic and you're not resigning!" said Harry fiercely, seizing Ron by the front of his robes. "You can save anything when you're on form, it's a mental problem you've got!"

"You calling me mental?"

"Yeah, maybe I am!"

They glared at each other for a moment, then Ron shook his head wearily.

"I know you haven't got any time to find another Keeper, so I'll play tomorrow, but if we lose, and we will, I'm taking myself off the team."

Nothing we said made any difference. We tried boosting Ron's confidence all through dinner, but Ron was too busy being grumpy and surly with Hermione to notice. We persisted in the common room that evening, but our assertion that the whole team would be devastated if Ron left was somewhat undermined by the fact that the rest of the team was sitting in a huddle in a distant corner, clearly muttering about Ron and casting him nasty looks. Finally Harry and Oliver tried getting angry again in the hope of provoking Ron into a defiant, and hopefully goal-saving, attitude, but this strategy did not appear to work any better than encouragement; Ron went to bed as dejected and hopeless as ever.

I lay awake for a very long time in the darkness. I did not want to lose the upcoming match; we were determined to beat Malfoy at Quidditch even if we could not yet prove our suspicions about him. Yet if Ron played as he had done in the last few practices, our chances of winning were very slim...