Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

“D’you think Hermione did snog Krum?” Ron asked abruptly, as they approached the Fat Lady. Harry gave a guilty start and wrenched his imagination away from a corridor in which no Ron intruded, in which he and Ginny were quite alone—“What?” he said confusedly. “Oh… er…” The honest answer was “yes,” but he did not want to give it. However, Ron seemed to gather the worst from the look on Harry’s face.

“Dilligrout,” he said darkly to the Fat Lady, and they climbed through the portrait hole into the common room.

Neither of them mentioned Ginny or Hermione again; indeed, they barely spoke to each other that evening and got into bed in silence, each absorbed in his own thoughts.

Harry lay awake for a long time, looking up at the canopy of his four-poster and trying to convince himself that his feelings for Ginny were entirely elder-brotherly. They had lived, had they not, like brother and sister all summer, playing Quidditch, teasing Ron, and having a laugh about Bill and Phlegm? He had known Ginny for years now… It was natural that he should feel protective… natural that he should want to look out for her… want to rip Dean limb from limb for kissing her… No… he would have to control that particular brotherly feeling…

Ron gave a great grunting snore.

She’s Ron’s sister, Harry told himself firmly. Ron’s sister. She’s out-of-bounds.

He would not risk his friendship with Ron for anything. He punched his pillow into a more comfortable shape and waited for sleep to come, trying his utmost not to allow his thoughts to stray anywhere near Ginny.

Harry awoke next morning feeling slightly dazed and confused by a series of dreams in which Ron had chased him with a Beater’s bat, but by midday he would have happily exchanged the dream Ron for the real one, who 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. Harry 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 Harry’s 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 Demelza Robins to tears.

“You shut up and leave her alone!” shouted Peakes, who was about two-thirds 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. “Peakes, go and pack up the Bludgers. Demelza, 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.”

He 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 Harry said made any difference. He tried boosting Ron’s confidence all through dinner, but Ron was too busy being grumpy and surly with Hermione to notice. Harry persisted in the common room that evening, but his 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 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.