He pocketed the potion again.
“There really wasn’t anything in my pumpkin juice?” Ron said, astounded. “But the weather’s good . . . and Vaisey couldn’t play. . . . I honestly haven’t been given lucky potion?”
Harry shook his head. Ron gaped at him for a moment, then rounded on Hermione, imitating her voice. “You added Felix Felicis to Ron’s juice this morning, that’s why he saved everything! See! I can save goals without help, Hermione!”
“I never said you couldn’t — Ron, you thought you’d been given it too!”
But Ron had already strode past her out of the door with his broomstick over his shoulder.
“Er,” said Harry into the sudden silence; he had not expected his plan to backfire like this, “shall . . . shall we go up to the party, then?”
“You go!” said Hermione, blinking back tears. “I’m sick of Ron at the moment, I don’t know what I’m supposed to have done. . . .”
And she stormed out of the changing room too.
Harry walked slowly back up the grounds toward the castle through the crowd, many of whom shouted congratulations at him, but he felt a great sense of letdown; he had been sure that if Ron won the match, he and Hermione would be friends again immediately. He did not see how he could possibly explain to Hermione that what she had done to offend Ron was kiss Viktor Krum, not when the offense had occurred so long ago.
Harry could not see Hermione at the Gryffindor celebration party, which was in full swing when he arrived. Renewed cheers and clapping greeted his appearance, and he was soon surrounded by a mob of people congratulating him. What with trying to shake off the Creevey brothers, who wanted a blow-by-blow match analysis, and the large group of girls that encircled him, laughing at his least amusing comments and batting their eyelids, it was some time before he could try to find Ron. At last, he extricated himself from Romilda Vane, who was hinting heavily that she would like to go to Slughorn’s Christmas party with him. As he was ducking toward the drinks table, he walked straight into Ginny, Arnold the Pygmy Puff riding on her shoulder and Crookshanks mewing hopefully at her heels.
“Looking for Ron?” she asked, smirking. “He’s over there, the filthy hypocrite.”
Harry looked into the corner she was indicating. There, in full view of the whole room, stood Ron wrapped so closely around Lavender Brown it was hard to tell whose hands were whose.
“It looks like he’s eating her face, doesn’t it?” said Ginny dispassionately. “But I suppose he’s got to refine his technique somehow. Good game, Harry.”
She patted him on the arm; Harry felt a swooping sensation in his stomach, but then she walked off to help herself to more butterbeer. Crookshanks trotted after her, his yellow eyes fixed upon Arnold.
Harry turned away from Ron, who did not look like he would be surfacing soon, just as the portrait hole was closing. With a sinking feeling, he thought he saw a mane of bushy brown hair whipping out of sight.
He darted forward, sidestepped Romilda Vane again, and pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady. The corridor outside seemed to be deserted.
“Hermione?”
He found her in the first unlocked classroom he tried. She was sitting on the teacher’s desk, alone except for a small ring of twittering yellow birds circling her head, which she had clearly just conjured out of midair. Harry could not help admiring her spellwork at a time like this.
“Oh, hello, Harry,” she said in a brittle voice. “I was just practicing.”
“Yeah . . . they’re — er — really good. . . .” said Harry.
He had no idea what to say to her. He was just wondering whether there was any chance that she had not noticed Ron, that she had merely left the room because the party was a little too rowdy, when she said, in an unnaturally high-pitched voice, “Ron seems to be enjoying the celebrations.”
“Er . . . does he?” said Harry.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t see him,” said Hermione. “He wasn’t exactly hiding it, was — ?”
The door behind them burst open. To Harry’s horror, Ron came in, laughing, pulling Lavender by the hand.
“Oh,” he said, drawing up short at the sight of Harry and Hermione.
“Oops!” said Lavender, and she backed out of the room, giggling. The door swung shut behind her.
There was a horrible, swelling, billowing silence. Hermione was staring at Ron, who refused to look at her, but said with an odd mixture of bravado and awkwardness, “Hi, Harry! Wondered where you’d got to!”
Hermione slid off the desk. The little flock of golden birds continued to twitter in circles around her head so that she looked like a strange, feathery model of the solar system.
“You shouldn’t leave Lavender waiting outside,” she said quietly. “She’ll wonder where you’ve gone.”
She walked very slowly and erectly toward the door. Harry glanced at Ron, who was looking relieved that nothing worse had happened.
“Oppugno!” came a shriek from the doorway.
Harry spun around to see Hermione pointing her wand at Ron, her expression wild: The little flock of birds was speeding like a hail of fat golden bullets toward Ron, who yelped and covered his face with his hands, but the birds attacked, pecking and clawing at every bit of flesh they could reach.
“Gerremoffme!” he yelled, but with one last look of vindictive fury, Hermione wrenched open the door and disappeared through it. Harry thought he heard a sob before it slammed.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE UNBREAKABLE VOW