Purple Rain.

Chapter Twenty.

"I'm starving," Ron announced, stowing Pigwidgeon next to Hedwig, grabbing a Chocolate Frog from Harry and throwing himself into the seat next to Harry. He ripped open the wrapper, bit off the Frog's head, and leaned back with eyes closed as though he had had a very exhausting morning.

"Well, there are two fifth-year prefects from each House," said Hermione, looking thoroughly disgruntled as she took her seat beside Ginny. "Boy and girl from each." (Y/n) looked around before settling on the floor right under the compartment window. She had plenty of space there and saw no problems sitting there.

"And guess who's a Slytherin prefect?" said Ron, still with his eyes closed.

"Malfoy," replied Harry at once, his worst fear confirmed.

"'Course," said Ron bitterly, stuffing the rest of the Frog into his mouth and taking another.

"And Pansy Parkinson's right alongside him," Hermione added.

"Who's Hufflepuff?" Harry asked.

"Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott," said Ron thickly.

"And Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil for Ravenclaw," said Hermione.

"We went to the ball with Padma Patil," said a vague voice.
Everyone turned to look at Luna Lovegood, who was gazing unblinkingly at Neville over the top of The Quibbler. Neville smiled nervously.

"We did, didn't we? Though you technically were her date," said Neville and Luna smiled and nodded.

"She enjoyed it very much," Luna informed him. "She said you weren't the best dancer, but you treated her very well because you provided her company... As did (Y/n)... I don't think I would have minded a bad dance partner," she said thoughtfully, "I don't like dancing very much."
She retreated behind The Quibbler again. Ron stared at the cover with his mouth hanging open for a few seconds, then looked around at Ginny for some kind of explanation, but Ginny had stuffed her knuckles in her mouth to stop herself giggling. Ron shook his head, bemused, then checked his watch.

"We're supposed to patrol the corridors every so often," he told Harry and Neville, "and we can give out punishments if people are misbehaving. I can't wait to get Crabbe and Goyle for something..."

"You're not supposed to abuse your position, Ron!" said Hermione sharply.

"Yeah, right, because Malfoy won't abuse it at all," said Ron sarcastically.

"So you're going to descend to his level?"

"No, I'm going to make sure I get his mates before he gets mine."

"For heaven's sake, Ron—"

"I'll make Goyle do lines, it'll kill him, he hates writing," said Ron happily. He lowered his voice to Goyle's low grunt and, screwing up his face in a look of pained concentration, mimed writing in midair. "I... must... not... look... like... a... baboon's... backside..."
Everyone laughed, but nobody laughed harder than Luna Lovegood. She let out a scream of mirth that caused Hedwig to wake up and flap her wings indignantly and Crookshanks to leap up into the luggage rack, hissing. She laughed so hard that her magazine slipped out of her grasp, slid down her legs, and onto the floor.

"That was funny!"
Her prominent eyes swam with tears as she gasped for breath, staring at Ron. Utterly nonplussed, he looked around at the others, who were now laughing at the expression on Ron's face and at the ludicrously prolonged laughter of Luna Lovegood, who was rocking backwards and forward, clutching her sides.

"Are you taking the mickey?" said Ron, frowning at her.

"Baboon's... backside!" she choked, holding her ribs.
Everyone else was watching Luna laughing, but Harry, glancing at the magazine that was on the floor right beside (Y/n)'s outstretched legs, noticed something that made him dive for it. Upside down it had been hard to tell what the picture on the front was, but now Harry realized it was a fairly bad cartoon of Cornelius Fudge; Harry only recognized him because of the lime-green bowler hat. One of Fudge's hands was clenched around a bag of gold; the other hand was throttling a goblin. The cartoon was captioned: HOW FAR WILL FUDGE GO TO GAIN GRINGOTTS?
Beneath this were listed the titles of other articles inside the magazine.