01209 The Situation

Coming down into the entrance hall, Ron was struck by a sudden gust of cold wind sweeping through from the open doors, cold enough to make him shiver hard, and he stopped in his tracks, glancing instinctively out through the doorway at the grounds beyond.

A misty, fine drizzle blanketed the whole grey world outside. Far in the distance, the peaks standing at the very edge of sight had already been touched with a thin streak of white along their tops.

That white was faintly spreading even as he watched, day by day, like winter creeping quietly closer across the land.

Usually, mealtimes meant the Great Hall was full of noise and chatter, but today, with well over half the students gone off on the field trip, the unfamiliar quiet that had settled over the room instead left everyone who did come in to eat with a strange, faintly uneasy feeling.

That underlying strangeness bred a kind of low, invisible pressure of its own that made the hall feel even quieter than the plain absence of noise alone would explain.

The staff table itself sat sparsely occupied this morning.

Professor Trelawney, who preferred to keep to her own tower most days regardless of the occasion, was absent as usual; Hagrid, too, was off in his hut somewhere looking after his various creatures, missing his own breakfast as he often did; and Professor Rahansen, much like Hagrid in his habits, preferred to spend his mornings in his cabin, close to nature.

Aside from those three regular absences, the rest of the staff hardly ever missed a meal together—but today, the only ones actually seated at the staff table were Professor Dumbledore, chatting with Professor Burbage over their breakfast.

It wasn't often at all that all four Heads of House found themselves absent from the table together.

"Probably gone off to Hogsmeade for a meal together—"

Lavender said this fearlessly, tossing off the guess without much thought, in response to Ron's obvious confusion at the empty table.

It was certainly possible, when he considered it. Professors were ordinary witches and wizards too, after all, whatever the students liked to imagine—they needed to socialize occasionally, to relax, to rest from the constant demands of teaching.

Ron nodded at the explanation and let the matter drop for now, though some vague unease lingered in his chest all the same.

Perhaps it was only an illusion, he told himself, conjured up by the unnatural quiet hanging over the whole hall this morning.

By the time Ron had sat himself down at the table, he'd already mostly tossed these small distractions out of his mind, turning his attention instead to the practical matter of breakfast.

One small advantage of there being noticeably fewer people around today was that his line of sight across the hall was entirely unobstructed, nothing was blocking his view.

At the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables, only a scattering of older students still sat, spread thin across the benches.

The Gryffindor and Slytherin tables, though, were oddly matched in their emptiness.

On the Gryffindor side, there was only Ron and Lavender occupying the whole long table between them. On the Slytherin side, directly opposite, only Malfoy and Parkinson sat, similarly alone.

Naturally enough, given the empty hall and the clear sightlines, Ron's eyes met Malfoy's and Parkinson's own for a brief moment across the room.

The distance between the two tables was too great for him to make out whatever light might be flickering in Malfoy's eyes from here, but he could still feel the coldness radiating from those grey eyes fixed on him. Parkinson's gaze, beside Malfoy's, held that same chill.

"Hssh."

Lavender glanced quickly over at Malfoy and Parkinson herself and dropped her own head, breaking the contact.

"Their eyes are frightening, Ronnie, honestly. Aren't they, just a bit?"

Ron's expression stiffened slightly at the observation. He looked away too, ducking his own head down to focus on his food instead.

Harry had always insisted that Malfoy must have been recruited by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as a Death Eater.

Though Ron himself had always privately thought that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would have little use for a teenage Death Eater still finishing his own schooling, he had to admit that Malfoy's cold indifferent stare from a moment ago really had been rather unsettling up close.

The kitchens hadn't skimped on the morning's spread at all just because fewer young witches and wizards had come down to eat early; there was still a generous, full variety on offer this morning, same as any other day.

But Ron wasn't tucking into it all the way he normally would.

For one thing, he had a cold weighing on him, and his usual appetite had suffered noticeably for it, food was tasting duller than usual.

For another, according to the plan they'd all worked out together the night before, he was meant to stay stationed in the Great Hall for the whole day, unless Malfoy made some kind of definite move first—which meant, in fact, he had all the time in the world ahead of him to fill his stomach, there was no need to rush.

He broke off a small piece of pumpkin pasty from his plate and pushed it into his mouth, chewing through it bite by half-hearted bite, keeping half an eye trained on Malfoy and Parkinson the entire while, his heart was uneasy beneath the casual pose.

With Harry and Hermione not there beside him this morning, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that something important was missing from the whole arrangement.

"I don't quite understand what's got into you—"

They'd been close for months now, so of course Lavender could tell easily enough that her dear Ronnie was on edge about something.

What should have been a rare and welcome chance for the two of them to have breakfast together alone had instead left Ronnie so thoroughly distracted by some odd, unexplained business that he had no attention left over for her at all.

Lavender bit at her full lower lip, a small flicker of genuine displeasure crossing her face, a note of quiet resentment creeping steadily into her voice.

"What?"

Ron asked, without even turning his head to look at her, attention still fixed across the hall.

"Harry and Hermione think it was Malfoy who broke into Professor Watson's office last time, don't they?"

Lavender asked, watching him carefully.

"Well, that's what Harry thinks, anyway."

"But what does that whole business actually have to do with the two of us?"

Lavender asked, sounding rather forlorn about the whole arrangement.

"Oh, it's got everything to do with us, Lavender, honestly!"

Ron answered before he could stop himself, the words coming out a touch too fast, and, faced with his girlfriend's questioning look afterward, he swallowed once and lowered his voice a notch, glancing round.

"Think about it, Lavender—the only sort of people who'd ever break into Professor Watson's office in the first place are people up to no good against Hogwarts!"

Lavender blinked slowly at that, waiting for him to actually finish the thought.

"If we can catch Malfoy red-handed at it, find some solid proof that he tried to break into Professor Watson's office, then we can get him thrown clean out of Hogwarts for good, once and for all!"

"So, the actual goal you two are really after here is just getting Malfoy expelled—not protecting Hogwarts itself, as such?"

Lavender asked, with an air of entirely innocent guilelessness, as though the question had only just occurred to her naturally.

Ron's voice caught in his throat at that, and his brow furrowed hard.

That really was a rather good question when put that simply.

"So does Harry actually have any proper evidence at all to suspect Malfoy specifically, then? Anything solid?"

Lavender went on, still blinking those wide, innocent eyes of hers up at him, entirely unbothered by his growing discomfort.

"For Harry—oh, he doesn't rightly need evidence for it, Lavender—"

Pressed with one sharp question after another, Ron was growing a little irritated himself now, his tone was hardening slightly at the edges.

"Every single bad thing that ever happens at this school has got something to do with Malfoy somewhere, one way or another. That much can't possibly be wrong!"

….

"Weasley and his little girlfriend really did stay behind today, Draco—"

While Ron and Lavender were having their own discussion about Malfoy and Parkinson across the hall, over at the Slytherin table the two of them were, in an odd mirror of it, having a rather similar conversation of their own.

"I saw, Pansy—"

Draco said airily, without so much as sparing a single glance across the hall toward the foolish, obviously gossiping Weasley and his plain, forgettable little girlfriend.

"Do you think Potter left the pair of them behind specifically to keep watch on us?"

Pansy looked over at Draco's still profile, real worry showing now in her own eyes as she studied him.

Draco gave a cold, dismissive snort at the question, his lips were curling into a faint sneer.

"Obviously he did. No one understands Potter better than I do. He's always fancied himself the Chosen One, hasn't he—I'd wager anything he's had his suspicions about me for a good while now."

"So what do we actually do now, then?"

Pansy didn't asking why Draco felt so confident in his reading of the situation, did she throw Ron so much as a single hostile look across the hall in response.

Instead, she turned her attention, quite casually, over toward the staff table instead, where Professor Dumbledore still sat deep in active conversation with Professor Burbage.

As far as she was concerned, Ron Weasley himself didn't matter one way or the other in the end. What was actually worth worrying over here was Dumbledore's presence.

"Potter's gone and made another foolish move. If it had been Granger left behind to watch us instead, that might have posed a bit of trouble for us—but he left the even more foolish Weasley behind in her place, which makes the whole thing rather easier for us, if anything, not harder—"

'Easier?'

Pansy narrowed her own sharp, faintly sardonic eyes at that, looking a little puzzled by the logic of it at first—but a moment later she understood what Draco meant by it.

She didn't bother questioning it further after that.

Draco was right, thinking it through. This way was easier for them, indeed.

Another ten minutes passed at the staff table, and at last, having filled himself on the delicious spread laid out before him, Dumbledore finished up his conversation with Professor Burbage with a cheerful laugh at something she'd said.

He cast what looked like a casual glance toward the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables, then rose smoothly to his feet and, smiling to himself, slipped quietly out through the small side door set into the front of the hall.

Almost the very instant Dumbledore had left the hall behind him, Malfoy and Parkinson rose to their own feet together, with an uncanny sort of synchrony between them.

Ron, who'd been picking at his breakfast half-distracted the entire while, immediately tensed at the sight. He kept his head lowered, as if paying the whole thing no particular attention at all, but his eyes tracked Malfoy and Parkinson's every subsequent move with focus now.

Ron had privately assumed, going in, that Malfoy and Parkinson would simply head back down together to the cold, gloomy dungeons of the Slytherin common room once breakfast finished.

That was, after all, the very reason Hermione had specifically suggested he stay stationed in the Great Hall today, when they'd all carefully worked out their plan together with Harry the night before!

As long as he stayed put in the Great Hall as arranged, then once Malfoy eventually emerged from the dungeons again later, wherever he chose to go from there, Ron's eyes wouldn't lose him in the crowd—he could simply use Harry's Invisibility Cloak to follow along unseen.

If Malfoy decided to actually make his move right after breakfast like this, so much the better for their plan.

All Ron had to do, in that case, was follow along quietly at a safe distance, then show himself openly at exactly the right moment. Only if he actually saw the whole thing happen with his own eyes would Malfoy have no way left to argue his way back out of it afterward.

But—

Watching Malfoy and Parkinson instead walk straight out through the entrance hall, seemingly oblivious to the miserable, steady drizzle still falling outside the doors, Ron was left rather stunned by the sight.

What on earth was going on here?

In weather this thoroughly wretched, any sensible young witch or wizard would rather curl up warm all day long in their cozy common room by the fire—but Malfoy and Parkinson were heading out for a walk in it?!

Had the pair of them lost their minds?!

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