LUCY:

As soon as Harry's hand closed around the Snitch, I slipped through the crowd and headed down to the changing tent as soon as possible. Ron had already come and gone, though, so I darted outside and looked around. If it hadn't been three days to the full moon, I might have missed

Ron and I had been walking in silence for only about thirty seconds when I heard something behind us. I turned around to see a Golden Snitch, the one from the game, most likely, fluttering along behind us. I snatched it from the air, and the wings stilled in my hand.

"Reckon Harry's alright?" I asked. It seemed odd for him to let the Snitch go. There was nothing inherently wrong with doing so, it just seemed... odd.

"I'm sure he is." Ron's voice was little more than a strained croak. "Hero of the game and all, since I—"

"You did just fine."

He huffed. "'Just fine.' That's far too kind."

"No, it's not, it's true."

"Well, then you're far too kind."

"Quidditch is — well, was — my life, Ron. I know Quidditch. You did just fine."

"I let in every single Quaffle that got close."

"So did Oliver Wood in his first game as a Puddlemere reserve."

Ron blinked. A tiny, tiny crack in his stony expression.

"He's been writing me since August. He has a younger brother in Hufflepuff, same year as Cedric, so he knew. He let in all seventeen goals in his first match."

"Seventeen?" Ron repeated, clearly surprised.

"Seventeen. They lost the match, even though they caught the Snitch because apparently their Chasers choked too. Look, I know you've been comparing yourself to Oli this whole time, feeling like you'll never match up, but not even the great Oliver Wood is immune to getting nervous and choking. And you didn't choke, Ron, four goals is a lot less than seventeen."

"This is Hogwarts Quidditch, though, Oliver's playing professionally now."

"I can ask him about his first Hogwarts match, if you want."

"But what if it went better than mine?"

"I wouldn't tell you, I'd just say he couldn't remember."

He snorted quietly, a small smile flickering across his face for a moment before disappearing.

"My point is," I continued. "You don't have to compare yourself to whatever idea of Oliver Wood you have in your mind. He's not perfect, and neither are you. You're two wildly different people, anyway. For example, I've never heard you cuss someone out in a Scottish accent so thick we had to ask for a transcription of what was said."

Ron smiled again for a moment. "Who was he cussing out?"

"I'll give you one guess. Well, two guesses."

"The twins?"

"Who else?"

Ron's smile faltered and disappeared.

I pursed my lips. "You don't have to compare yourself to your brothers, either."

"Why not? Everyone else does."

"I don't."

"Everyone aside from you, then."

"Hermione doesn't."

"I doubt that."

"Harry certainly doesn't."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Ron." I hurried forward and gestured for him to follow me. I marched in silence all the way to the shores of the Black Lake, pointing at the water. "'How can you be so sure?' Ron, you were who Harry would miss most."

"Only because Hermione was already Krum's and you were already Ced— sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Ron, it's alright. Really." I shook my head and locked my gaze on him even though he was still staring out at the water. "That's besides the point. Even if Harry does compare you to your brothers, you come out on top. You have proof that you're what Harry would miss most. At the very least, you're the Weasley Harry would miss most, not Ginny or George or Fred or Percy or Charlie or Bill or your mum or your dad or the ghoul in the attic."

His mouth twitched slightly in amusement at the mention of Percy and the mention of the ghoul in the attic, but he didn't reply out loud. A chill breeze kicked up then, and Ron shivered a bit.

"C'mon, let's keep walking so you don't freeze," I said.

I remained silent as we walked a lap around the perimeter of the lake, letting him think about everything I had said. We walked another lap in silence, then another lap. By the fourth lap, the cloudy sky overhead growing darker, my own thoughts started to wander. I was thinking about Quidditch.

Cedric and I had been sheltered, in hindsight, very sheltered. I realized now a number of reasons for it. My parents couldn't risk anyone recognizing me, which was especially risky when I was really young and didn't have as many scars marring my face. And it worked, no one had recognized me. They couldn't risk any werewolves trying to find me, either. It was far safer for me if Greyback assumed I was dead or too far away to be worth the trouble of trying to contact or recruit or attack or whatever else he might have had in mind. And it worked, at least until the world fell apart.

We had been sheltered, very sheltered, but we always had Quidditch. In our parents' eyes, the skies were safe for us, as long as the weather was nice and we watched out for each other. Which we did. We always did. And when the weather wasn't nice, when both of us decided to fall at the same time, when the moon got in the way, we always had Seeker Weekly and the sports section of the Daily Prophet. Before a full moon, when I stayed in my dark and quiet room, I often entertained myself with various daydreams about Quidditch, all of the matches I would play in and even win one day. And after a full moon, when I was too weak to get out of bed and a couple of days behind the news, Cedric would come in and read to me about the matches I had missed, and when he was at Hogwarts and not getting the Prophet, I would cut out clippings about the Magpies to send his way. We always had Quidditch. We.

But Cedric was gone. There was no more "we." And it felt unfair to change the "we" to an "I." We always had Quidditch. I didn't want to have Quidditch without him. It felt wrong, so wrong, to still love something that would be forever altered because Cedric would never again be there to enjoy it with me. My Seeker Weekly magazines were untouched in an ever-growing stack in the trunk at the foot of my bed. I had refused Angelina's offer of the reserve position on the team.

At the same time... there was no denying the love I still had for the game. Even though I had panicked the last time I had been in the sky, even though I had made the mistake of looking down, even though I was out of shape and out of practice and out of commission and out of the loop, I still loved Quidditch. Everything within me still loved Quidditch, even though I knew it would never be the same again. My Seeker Weekly magazines were untouched, but I didn't have it in myself to cancel the subscription, even though I'd cut myself off from Quidditch in nearly every other way. It was still Cedric's name on the envelope, but Malachi brought it to me. I had insisted Ginny take the Snitch, but I had also insisted she use my broom if she needed to enter the match. Maybe it would never be the same for me, but I was still madly, deeply, irrevocably in love with Quidditch. And that type of love never dies, no matter how much it may change.

By the fifth lap, I was wondering if the outcome might have been different if I had still been on the team. Katie had been the only one to score a goal, so I knew she was certainly worthy of her spot and a great addition to the team, but hearing Lee refer to her as my replacement made me squirm from my spot in the stands. Maybe I was a coward for quitting. Maybe if Ron had another close friend on the team, he would have been more confident, and if he had been more confident, maybe he would have done better, and if he had done better, maybe the two of us would be up at the Gryffindor party right now, celebrating with everyone else instead of wandering around in the increasing cold.

"I think I compare myself because I don't know any different," Ron said as we started our sixth lap around the lake. The sky was growing darker still, and the clouds looked more and more threatening with every passing moment.

I nodded slowly. "I noticed this summer your mum talks a lot about the three boys that have already left the house. Even Percy, who... well, you know."

"Yeah, exactly!" He sounded relieved that I agreed. "Even though Percy was a complete git, when I was made prefect, she kept talking about how great it was that I was becoming more like Percy. She's always expected me to try to be like Percy and Bill or Charlie, because they were Head Boys and Quidditch Captain, respectively. And then here at school, I've always been Fred and George's brother, and here, I'm expected to try to be like them. I think Ginny gets it a bit too, but it's different for her, since she's a girl and she's the youngest and she's, well, she's Ginny. She's never particularly cared about what people think."

"Which is why she and Luna get along so well, and why they're such good friends for Neville to have," I asserted.

"Oh, you're right. I haven't really thought about it that way."

"I hadn't until a couple seconds ago," I admitted with a little laugh. "But to tie this back into you, you're not Ginny. You do care about what people think."

He stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded. "Well... yeah, I do," he said softly.

"There's nothing wrong with that. Cedric did, too."

"Well, Cedric was Cedric. Didn't they literally call him 'Golden Boy?'"

"He hated that, actually," I said. "He thought he didn't deserve the title."

"But..." Ron's face contorted in confusion. "Bloody hell, he was a prefect, the Quidditch Captain, the real Triwizard champion, no offense to Harry, and definitely would have been Head Boy. If he wasn't 'Golden Boy,' who was?"

I glanced at Ron meaningfully. "Even golden boys can have self-doubt. Cedric definitely did. He cared a lot about what other people thought about him, and he really wanted to try to live up to the title they gave him, even though he hated it with a burning passion."

Ron seemed to consider this for a moment, so I let a couple moments pass in silence.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with caring about what other people think as long as you don't let it consume you, because at the end of the day, people..." I swallowed hard. "People come and go." Claire, Cedric. Abby and Danny, Susan and Amos. "At the end of your rope, you only have yourself. I've been alone and in trouble and at the end of my rope, and, well, I wasn't really thinking about whether or not Draco Malfoy would make fun of me when school started again, you know?"

"Right." He slowed down a bit, turning to look at me, but I instead looked down at my feet as they crunched over the gravel.

"It's the people who love you that matter, and the love you have for those people." My dream from those final moments in the caves flashed before my eyes. Cedric, bathed in a golden glow. Harry's hand touching mine. All of my friends, too, and Ron among them. I glanced up and smiled a bit. "I happen to think you're a great friend, and I would feel that way even if you let seventeen goals in today and we lost the match."

"Perspective," he said, still looking at me a bit strangely, as if I were a ghost. Of all of my friends, I had really talked to Ron the least about what had happened. It wasn't that I didn't trust him, because I did, but he just hadn't asked. He'd given me my space, and I was grateful for it. Harry was in the trenches with me. Hermione wanted to try to jump in and fix everything, but there were just some things she couldn't understand, so sometimes her best intentions didn't necessarily have the best impacts. Ron, though, understood he didn't understand, and just offered what support he could from the outside. In that moment, I thought about letting him in, but this conversation wasn't about me. It was about him, and the fact that he had far too low of an opinion of himself.

"Perspective," I agreed. "I mean, obviously I hope you're never, you know, alone in a cave surrounded by Death Eaters, but should that ever happen, at least you'll have this conversation, right?"

My attempt at humor was successful. He snorted and nodded. "Right."

We walked in silence the rest of the way around the lake.

"One more lap?" I asked.

"Sure. Are you cold, though? We can head up now if you're cold."

I stopped and crossed my arms, staring at him.

He stopped, too, and pinkened slightly in realization. "Right. Sorry."

I laughed, starting to walk again. "It's fine. No, I'm not cold. Are you?" As soon as the words left my mouth, a snowflake landed on my nose. I laughed again.

"I love the snow," Ron said as we kept walking. "I'm fine with staying out here for another lap, if you are."

"Are you kidding me? I've had a fever all day, this feels amazing."

We lapsed into silence as we walked around the lake one last time. I released the Snitch from my grip for the first time, and Ron and I took turns catching it as it wove through the snow. I pocketed it as we entered the castle and began our ascent to Gryffindor tower. I expected the common room to be empty, because it was certainly past curfew, but when we climbed through, Harry and Hermione were there.

Harry was rubbing the side of his neck, and my eyes immediately spotted his bruised knuckles.

"Harry, what happened?" I asked, darting over to the couch and inspecting his hand for myself. "Are you okay?"

"You should see Malfoy," Harry muttered flatly, his expression unreadable.

I opened my mouth to ask what the hell happened to Malfoy, but before I could, Hermione jumped up and dragged Ron to a chair by the fire.

"Where have you been? You look frozen! It's been hours! What were you two doing?"

"Walking," Ron said as I said, "Talking."

I blinked and returned my attention to Harry. "What happened to you? What did I miss? I started heading down as soon as your hand closed around the Snitch to try to catch Ron, what the hell did I miss?"

Harry and Hermione exchanged a look.

"What the hell did I miss?" I asked again, my hands still loosely wrapped around Harry's.

Harry stared down at the ground. "I've been given a lifetime ban from Quidditch. So have Fred and George."

I felt as if I'd been punched in the stomach. "What? H-How? Why?"

Harry tugged his hand free and crossed his arms over his stomach as Hermione began to explain. Crabbe knocking Harry off his broom after the game was over. Malfoy's comments. Harry and George pounding him to a pulp as Angelina, Alicia, and Katie all held Fred back. McGonagall, and Umbridge.

I was speechless, but Ron, as soon as the story was over, started blaming himself.

"This is all my fault," he whispered.

"You didn't make me punch Malfoy," Harry snapped.

"If I wasn't so lousy at Quidditch—"

"It's got nothing to do with that—"

"It was that song that wound me up—"

"It would've wound anyone up—"

"I'm sorry for ever thinking I could play Quidditch, I'm going to resign first thing tomorrow—"

"Don't you dare. If you resign, there'll only be three players left on the team!" Harry shook his head angrily. "Look, drop it, will you! It's bad enough without you blaming yourself for everything!"

Ron rested his head in his hands. "This is the worst I've ever felt in my life."

"Yeah, join the club," Harry muttered.

I inhaled shakily, reaching into my pocket for my wand. "Harry?"

"No." He flexed his hand, the one that still said I must not tell lies. "I don't want it to heal that easily. I'm never playing Quidditch again, I might as well— might as well have something from my last moments on the Pitch."

"Oh, don't be like that," I whispered, plunging my hand into my pocket for the Golden Snitch. I pressed it into his hand. "You let it go. It followed me. You can keep that, let me heal your hand."

Harry stared at the ball in his hand the same way Ron had looked at me earlier. Like it was a ghost and a miracle and a nail in the coffin all at once. Before he could say anything, Hermione jumped to her feet and hurried over to the window.

"Well, I can think of one thing that might cheer us all up," she said as she turned back around with a smile on her face.

"You think so?" I asked, doubting very much there was anything in the world that could possibly make anything about this better—

"Hagrid's back."