Harry Potter - The Accidental Animagus

Chapter 29 - Bonus: Ron

On Monday morning, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and four Weasley boys walked into the Great Hall as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. That lasted only until the arrival of the morning papers.

SIRIUS BLACK INNOCENT-RELEASED FROM AZKABAN!

REAL TRAITOR PETER PETTIGREW CAUGHT BY HARRY POTTER!

AMELIA BONES: BLACK NEVER RECEIVED TRIAL!

FUDGE DISAVOWS, DUMBLEDORE APOLOGISES!

BARTY CROUCH SUSPENDED!

POTTER AND SISTER TO RECEIVE ORDER OF MERLIN!

The previous day's trial was so sensational that even Rita Skeeter didn't need to fabricate anything, and her lead article was surprisingly accurate. She waxed quite purple at times and downplayed Hermione's role, but by her standards, it was practically a gift. Even Harry's quote to the press was reported correctly, although that may have been merely because there were dozens of witnesses.

As people started to read the headlines, there was a great commotion as people flocked to Harry to get his side of the story, and he told anyone who would listen that yes, the articles were mostly accurate, but that Hermione had helped out a lot, too. He also told Neville to thank his Gran for her support.

There was a noticeable change in tone as breakfast progressed, as people read through the articles and the chief source of noise changed from congratulations to awe to awkward comments and condolences when they got to the part where the last words of James and Lily Potter-and Harry's reaction to them, courtesy of Rita's quill-were reported.

Luckily, the Slytherins had the sense not to antagonise Harry after reading that article, although the entire hall heard Draco Malfoy proclaim that, "Mother always said Sirius was the white sheep of the Black Family." He laughed at his own joke. "I guess that's one mystery solved. He really was a blood traitor all along."

Meanwhile, Fred and George started singing another verse of "Potter can catch anything!" about catching an evil rat. They later got detention from Snape for rhyming it with "evil bat".

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Ron Weasley was very frustrated as he had to get all the way through classes that day before he had a chance to talk to Harry and Hermione. It didn't help that Malfoy and the other Slytherins were mocking him in the halls. It was all he could do to keep from throttling the little ponce at times. The other houses were sympathetic, but he still got tired of repeating their cover story over and over again. He barely even noticed it himself when he started embellishing his role in the affair just to feel a bit better about it.

Of course, part of him said he should consider himself lucky. The grief he was getting was nothing compared with Percy. One of the few things more embarrassing than an eleven-year-old boy finding out he'd been unwittingly sharing a bed with a thirty-one-year-old man was for it to happen to a fifteen-year-old boy, and Percy was high-strung enough as it was over the whole thing without people making rude remarks about it. Even he didn't deserve that.

The chaos of the day also meant that it would be hard to get away from the crowds to talk to Harry and Hermione. But then again, they were very private people, so they might have something in mind. So Ron fought his way through the crush after their last class of the day and tapped them both on the shoulder.