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chapter nine | detention with ronnie
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"If Snape thinks I'm going to do homework for him for a lesson he doesn't teach, then he's gone mental," Jess said, as she, Maddie and Jake made their way back to the Gryffindor Common Room after pigging out in the Great Hall.
"I know, but..." Jake trailed off. "We don't really wanna get on his bad side, do we?"
"We?" Maddie glanced his way with a funny expression. "I've been on his bad side since the second lesson of our first year, that ship sailed a long time ago,"
"Okay," Jake nodded, knowing fully well Maddie was correct. "But you don't want to get into even more trouble, do you? You've already got a detention, tonight,"
"Yeah, well," Maddie shrugged. "I'm already knee deep in shit, aren't I? What's a little more?"
The trio entered the common room, which was bustling with students due to it being that particular time of day where everyone retreated to their House turf, thankful that their busy day had ended. Although, there were the few unlucky students that didn't have the luxury of a relaxed evening ahead of them - and two of these were third year Gryffindors.
"There you are!" A voice exclaimed with a hint of annoyance, and Maddie looked up to meet an agitated looking Ron Weasley, crossing his arms impatiently. She blinked with bewilderment, slightly taken aback at his abruptness.
"Ron!" she greeted, her face relaxing with a smile once the surprise had faded away. "What's up?"
"What's up? I've been waiting ages for you - we've got detention, Snape's gonna murder us, if we're late!"
"Alright, precious," she said, letting out a laugh, as Jess left her with a smirk, shortly joined by Jake. "We can go now, if you're so worried,"
"I'm not worried! I just don't want anymore shit from Snape," Ron said, defensively.
"Yeah, well, who always gets detentions from him? Me. Meaning, who knows best? Me. So stop stressing, Weasley. I didn't take you for such a worrier,"
"Wha- I'm not." he said quickly. "I'm not a worrier,"
"Well, you're certainly acting like one,"
Ron shut up, after that.
The two arrived at the Hospital Wing, where Madame Pomfrey seemed to greet Maddie with a look of slight dread.
"Miss Jordan," she said. "I was wondering when you'd end up here again - what is it now, young lady?"
Ron turned his head to the girl with a questionable glance.
"Oh, no," Maddie brushed it off with a laugh. "I'm not injured this time, I got a detention,"
"...Oh," Madame Pomfrey replied, almost looking (pleasantly, Maddie would call it) surprised. "So... Mr Weasley, you too?"
"Yeah," Ron said with a much more gloomier tone than his detention partner. "We have to scrub the bedpans without magic,"
"Right," Madame Pomfrey. "I expect Professor Snape will be asking to make sure you both turned up - the equipment is over there in that cupboard." she nodded to a cabinet in the corner of the room. " Although, you should probably know that by now, shouldn't you, Miss Jordan?"
Maddie grinned.
"I s'pose I should leave you two troublemakers to it, I'll do my best to stay out of the way,"
"Thanks, Miss," Maddie nodded with a smile. Ron seemed to wait for her to move first, as if needing the girl to give him a sense of direction.
"Okay," she said, striding forward to the cupboard. "I've done this detention... twice, before, I think."
She handed Ron a sponge.
"Although, I had to do it myself, and I'll tell you, it's a hell of a lot of work to do alone. How about we do - left to right? I'll do one half of the room, you do the other?"
"Uh... sure," Ron shrugged. "But... can we be quick? I don't wanna be here all night boring myself to death,"
"Alright, Ron," Maddie smirked. "Just because I get a lot of detentions doesn't mean I enjoy them - I'm just used to them. I'm not gonna spend hours here for the fun of it,"
"Er..." Ron said, before blinking. "Right. Yeah,"
"But," the young Jordan grinned, pulling out two bottles with nozzles on the end. "Who said this'll be boring?"
Ron raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, and the two teenagers got to work.
"How come Madame Pomfrey thought you were injured?" Ron asked, after a short silence. "Do you actually come here that often?"
"Yeah," Maddie replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "All the time - and St. Mungos. I'm a bit accident-prone,"
"A bit," said Ron, with a snort. "Yeah alright then. List all your 'accidents' and we'll decide whether they're just a little bit clumsy or you're actually cursed - or an idiot,"
"Okay," Maddie grinned, spraying a bedpan, before pausing in thought. Ron sprayed twice, before he began to scrub. "Lee challenged me to a race down a hill once - it was a lot steeper than it looked, I'm surprised I only broke my collarbone, really... especially after all those cartwheels..."
"Well, that's not so bad," said Ron. "Just sounds like an accident, you know, when you have a fall,"
"And then one time when I was younger, I was hanging upside down by my feet from the banisters on the top of my stairs," Maddie continued.
"Let me guess," said Ron. "You fell?"
"Mhm," she nodded, turning around and grinning at the boy, who was shaking his head. "I was about... seven? I was playing a vampire-bat game. Cracked my head open,"
"Fred and George tried to make me do an unbreakable vow with them, when I was little," Ron said, after a couple minutes of thinking through his own stories. Maddie cackled.
"Really?!" she said.
"Yeah," Ron said, his lips curving upwards at the sight of Maddie's amusement. "Dad only found me when my arm was wrapped around Fred's, he went ballistic,"
"That's hilarious, Ron," Maddie snorted, picking up her equipment and moving onto the next bed. "Perhaps it's an older brother thing. I made Lee swing me around by my ankles once in circles, round and round. It was actually really fun - until we ended up being closer to the table than we thought..."
"Of course,"
"And then there was the time I climbed the crockery cupboard and it fell on my neck. I had muggle stitches, can you believe it?" she added with a tone of excitement, turning to Ron with wide eyes.
"What're muggle stitches?" Ron asked, frowning.
"It's like - they sew your skin back together - I know!" Maddie added, acknowledging Ron's baffled expression. "It sounds so weird, but I agreed to try it because it sounded cool, and they do that and then - get this - the stitches dissolve,"
"Dissolve? Without magic?"
"Yeah! I know, it's so cool!"
"It's weird,"
"It's cool," Maddie corrected. "Actually - I think you can still see the scar if I - hold on," she lifted up her brown curls with one hand, and used the other to run her fingers along the back of her neck - until she could feel a thin line of delicate skin.
"Yep!" she said. "Come and look, it was here,"
"Erm..." was all Ron said, before he hobbled forward awkwardly to see Maddie's scar she was so enthusiastic about. "Oh... yeah, I see...cool..? I guess?"
"I know," Maddie said proudly, before returning to the bedpan. "And then there was the time Lee and I decided to cook a full English for our parents one morning... turns out fire is a lot harder to put out than we thought,"
"Merlin,"
"Oh yeah, and last year Jess dared me to jump onto the moving staircase underneath us, so I did it. I managed it! But I landed funny and... broke my leg."
"You know what, Maddie?" Ron interrupted, with an amused tone. "I wouldn't say you're accident prone, at all. Just fantastically stupid."
The girl laughed, and shrugged. "Anyway," Maddie continued. "What's your stories? You're the one disappearing with Harry and Hermione at the end of each year and coming back with fifty or more points for Gryffindor. You must get yourselves into some shit,"
"Yeah," Ron nodded, spraying his bottle yet again. "I mean... I didn't get too far, in first year. I got killed in the chess game - obviously in the game," he added, frowning slightly at the way he'd phrased it.
"You just made that sound boring as shit," said Maddie. "When I know perfectly well you played a life size version of it. Was it fun? I think normal wizard chess would be boring, but a life size one? That sounds like a good laugh,"
"Not sure I'd describe it as a 'good laugh'," said Ron. "I got knocked out. Then again, that seems to be second nature for you, doesn't it?" he added, with a teasing glance. "I was lucky to be on a horse, or I'd have been stabbed,"
"Oh. What about in second year, when you had to go down to that chamber?"
"Well... Lockhart kind of screwed things up, and I got stuck with him behind a load of rubble, so I didn't do much then, either," he admitted. "It-it was really all Harry, doing the heroic 'story-worthy' stuff. I was just... there," Ron trailed off, almost sounding ashamed - or even embarrassed.
"I doubt that's true, but if that's how you see it," said Maddie, casually. "Anyway, if it makes you feel any better, your stories are way more heroic than mine. You got knocked out playing wizard chess to help your friend get a stone, I was just being a prick and doing stuff for shits and giggles. Not that I regret it, of course," she added. "I'll still do all that stuff. It's fun,"
"You're bloody mental," Ron said, although he was wearing a small smile. "You know that?"
"Yes. And I think I'll take that as a compliment, so thank you, Ron," Maddie replied.
Ron grinned.
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Maddie liked to say, she thoroughly enjoyed her detention with Ron. Perhaps it was because she was so easily pleased, or just because she enjoyed having company, but whatever it was had made her forget that whilst she was scrubbing the bedpans in the hospital wing whilst getting to know the young Weasley boy, she'd seemed to have forgotten along the way that she'd actually been serving a detention.
Her conversations with Ron played over in her head as she lay down in her four-poster bed that night, as though analysing it all, like she'd talked so much while it was actually happening she hadn't chance to actually take in what was being said. Like always, her mouth worked before her brain. One particular moment seemed to stick out, though - and that was Ron stating that it was really Harry doing all the heroic stuff and him being 'just there'. Maddie didn't like the way he phrased that. Whether it was intentional, or not, he sounded as though he was almost embarrassed at getting a mention for being in the same predicament as Harry - and even more when Maddie was under the impression he'd done some 'heroic stuff' as if he was on the same level as his best friend. Because, Ron didn't seem to think he was.
And that was when it all clicked to Maddie that it was no wonder Ron felt a bit insecure, lingering in Harry's shadows. Of course, it wasn't Harry's fault - more or so the Dark Lord's creepy obsession with him, and the way Dumbledore as well as so many of the others presented him as some kind of noble god (even though he was, like, thirteen). She'd never thought about Ron having being known as 'Harry Potter's best friend that helps him sometimes, but Harry is the hero still'.
Maybe that was why he'd been so annoyed at being moved next to her in Potions. She was very self aware that she could be all 'in your face', as well as being quite a huge character in the classroom and in general (she can't help it, she doesn't mean to be). Maybe Ron was dreading having to sit in the shadows of yet another well-known-ish, loud student.
Or maybe he really was just pissed because he'd been landed with a really annoying girl that could talk for England but couldn't brew a simple potion to save her own life.
Whatever - Maddie couldn't linger on it for too long, because she fell asleep. Those comfy, scarlet duvets really were something. They'd have you in a deep slumber in seconds.
Although, she didn't end up having the best night's sleep. There had been a huge thunderstorm, and Peeves could be heard floating around in the boys' dormitories, so when she awoke after an awfully loud crash of thunder, and realised that Parvati and Hermione had woken up, too, she'd chatted to them, for a short while. This didn't last too long, though, since the two girls wanted to attempt to fall back asleep again, and so Maddie had to do the same.
The next day was the day of the first Quidditch game of the season - Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff. Apparently, it should've been Gryffindor versus Slytherin, but Malfoy claimed to have still been recovering from his injury, and so managed to have it changed.
The girls in Maddie's dormitory awoke to the noise of the pouring rain still pounding against the roof and windows, and Jess groaned.
"They should just cancel Quidditch if it's weather like this," she said, rubbing her eyes.
"Ooh, careful, Jess," Maddie said. "Don't want your brother finding out you said that. He'll go mental."
"Believe me," the brunette girl replied. "The amount of times I have told him, he has. I'm used to it."
"I agree, though," Lavender spoke up, opening the curtain which had surrounded her own four-poster bed. "Like - nobody wants to watch it, in this weather. And it'll be hard for players to see, I don't understand what the big hang up on rescheduling it is,"
"Yeah," Maddie nodded. "I dunno either, perhaps it's because they'd been training for so long... or maybe they just can't wait to play and don't want to put it off... I dunno. Ask them, not me,"
"Come on, then," said Jess with a yawn, getting up out of her bed and beginning to make it. "Jakey'll be waiting for us,"
Parvati was starting to wake up, now, too, and opened the curtains from around her bed. The only bed in the dormitory that didn't have a girl in or around it was Hermione's - neat, perfectly made and empty. She'd obviously left earlier, probably to meet Harry before he headed off to the changing rooms.
Maddie sighed, removing her covers and the coziness that came with them, a colder air now meeting her skin after revealing it from being under a duvet for many hours. She'd always found that, once she was out of bed, she could manage to do anything without the urge to fall back asleep. It was just the battle of getting herself out of bed that held her back in the mornings.
After the two girls met Jake at breakfast, they headed down to the stands wearing scarlet raincoats with their hoods up - Maddie even tied her curls into a bun to try and keep them dry, but within five minutes of being outside, all three of them were absolutely soaked.
In fact, the storm was so harsh, the only time they could really see both teams was when they marched onto the pitch - after Madame Hooch blew her whistle, all anyone could make out from the stands was a lot of mist and flashes of scarlet and yellow every now and then. Maddie had no idea how the players were doing.
And then, towards the end of the game was when it happened - the faint sight of Harry Potter falling from his broom after soaring up into the sky above. Maddie and her friends had frozen - and their eyes widened when the falling was followed by the Dementors that had supposed to have been guarding the school.
"OH MY GOD!" Maddie yelled amongst the crowd of panicked students. It was the only thing they could do - watch, as Harry plummeted towards the ground, just falling... and falling... waiting for the dreaded moment where he'd reach the ground...
Dumbledore had ran onto the pitch and cast some kind of spell that slowed Harry's falling, before whirling his wand at the Dementors and casting some kind of silvery stuff at them. They left the stadium straight away, and Maddie was in pure shock of it all. Harry plummeting, the Dementors, how furious Dumbledore was.
Not to mention, everyone had a sickening feeling in their stomach as they watched Harry disappear on a floating stretcher.
"He's..." Jess said, though struggling to find the words. "Is he... he's not..."
"No..." Jake said, although his tone suggested he thought otherwise. "He... he can't be dead? Dumbledore... he..."
"...Shit..." was all Maddie managed to choke up.
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Okay, so turns out, Harry didn't die.
The trio decided to visit their housemate, after giving his close friends a chance to speak to him first, and they all strode in to see the boy sitting in his hospital bed, surrounded only by Ron and Hermione, at this moment.
"Oi, oi, it's the Boy Who Lived Again!" Maddie spoke loudly, as she marched in.
"Miss Jordan, not so loud, please," Madame Pomfrey told her from across the room, before leaving to get another batch of medicine.
"...Alright," Maddie said, once she'd left. "I was just trying to lighten the mood... I'll go fuck myself,"
"How you feeling, mate?" said Jake, leaning against one of the bedposts. "Bit crap, I'd imagine,"
"Yeah, that's one way to put it," said Harry.
"I'm not surprised," said Jess. "You fell, what? Fifty feet?"
"Over," said Ron.
"Well, there's another near-death experience you survived," said Maddie, lightheartedly. "You should make a book and publish it - 'All The Times I Was Supposed To Die, But Didn't',"
"Yeah... not sure if being a writer was on my agenda, really," Harry said, with a slight grin. At least Maddie wasn't all serious like everyone else - it was beginning to get a bit depressing in here, especially when his broom was brought back all smashed up. "Certainly not about me dying,"
"Fair enough," Maddie said with a laugh.
"Any of you seen my brother?" Jess asked, suddenly. "I mean, he's probably all gloomy because you lost, but we haven't seen him since,"
"In the showers, apparently," said Hermione.
"Oh. Probably having a little snivel." she brushed it off.
Maddie and Jake laughed.
"You bored of the hospital wing, yet?" Maddie asked Harry. "I always get bored. Then again, you've got Ron and Hermione keeping you company - Jake and Jess always have to go to their lessons,"
"Er - yeah," Harry said, unsure of how to reply to the girl's casual ramble.
After twenty minutes or so, Madame Pomfrey returned and insisted Harry ought to be left in peace, to which the trio nodded, and said goodbye.
"We'll come and see you again, in a bit," Jake told Harry, before they left.
Maddie wondered if Harry was ever going to get a break.
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A/N: Maddie and her injuries 🙄 That girl is something else I stg but I still love her, the idiot.
Her detention with Ron though 🥰 I loved how they got to know each other a bit more, even if it was just a couple of bants. And Maddie already figuring out Ron's insecurity 🥺🥺
And then Harry just casually having another near experience 😭 That boy doesn't ever get one week of peace does he, bless him.
But anyways, I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you thought <3