| |Parenthood 1/? |
|By: |VHS |
|Fandom: |Harry Potter |
|Pairing: |Ron /?? |
|Type: |Challenge, 'Impregnate RW' challenge by |
| |roses_are_a_weed. Requirements: R gets |
| |knocked up, preferably by H or D. R is |
| |-not- painfully stupid. D is "evil, or at|
| |least nasty. Last, but not least, a happy|
| |ending. |
|Summary: | |
|Feedback: |Rory_Dasiny@hotmail.com |
|Part 1 | |
|Disclaimer: |HP belongs to J. K. Rowling. The slaying |
| |thing belongs to Josh Weldon. |
PART 1 .
The singer was good. Besides that he was pretty unique. His songs tended to energize a room, and watching the couple's dance was a little more than Ron could handle at the moment. Ron sighed again, and tried very hard not to think of ... Not working. Ron slumped deeper into the chair. Harry, sitting on the other side of the table, watched his friend. "Ron." No response. "Ron!"
"Ron, are you okay?" Hermione asked, noticing her friend's lack of interest.
"I'm fine," Ron, answered, though they could all tell it was far from the truth. He hadn't been fine for three months. Three months and he still missed his Angel. Constantly. The song ended and the MC announced there'd be a small break.
"Ron."
"It's bloody unfair," Ron mumbled.
"You know, your parents asked you if you wanted to go," Harry said.
Hermione was about to say something, but Ron cut her off. "I know, it just my night job." Ron glanced up to see the young man leaving the stage, and then slid out of his seat. "I'm going to go get a breath of fresh air," Ron said. "I'll be back in a minute." His friend's watched him go with worry. They had known it would take him a long time to get over Angel, but this was starting to push it.
"He'll cop to either annoyance or rage, but he thinks he's too grown up to hurt from missing his family," Harry thought as he sadly watches his friend go out side.
Ron stepped out into the cool night air, wondering why. Images of Angel's face flashed through his mind. Hand in hand as they roamed the streets. That day Angel was safe. The sun didn't come out and they spent Christmas together. Now he was gone.
He walked around the corner, wanting to get away from the crowded front entrance. He just needed to be alone. Except he'd been saying that for months and being alone hadn't helped anymore than being with other people. All he wanted was to be with him, and that wasn't going to happen.
There was shriek from around the corner and Ron shook off his private misery to do his sacred duty. He ran into the next alley and saw the singer from the Bronze desperately trying to fend off three vampires, and not having much luck. Ron shook his head.
"Now, now, these aren't fair odds," he said, clucking his tongue. The vampires spun on him, forgetting the singer.
"Slayer," one of them snarled.
"You called?" Ron asked, and then attacked. He kicked one down and spun around to punch another. He grabbed the young man's arm, shoving him to safety behind him. The boy-Chester-had stopped shrieking and watched wide- eyed as Ron dropkicked the legs out from the third. The first was back, and grabbed his arms, pulling him. He kicked the second that was coming at him from the front and managed to propel himself back against the wall, stunning the vampire that held him. He loosened his grip and Ron escaped, grabbing him and flipping him over his hip to the ground. Ron grabbed a stake and glanced up, then realized he'd made a mistake. He'd forgotten the third one.
And the third one currently had hold of the singer.
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The Singer's POV .
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I tried very, very hard not to scream. This red head was obviously the only help I was going to get, so screaming wasn't going to get me anywhere. I didn't want to ruin my voice; I still had another set to play. But I was scared.
At first, it had looked pretty good once the other young man showed up. He was kicking some serious ass, then one of these, whatever they were decided to forget the red head and grab me. Not a good thing. The red head paused and saw my predicament. I winced and glanced at the other two guys. I was not feeling extremely confident about this. The two guys attacked the red head, while I stood frozen, afraid to move. The guy holding me snarled. He snarled. This was really not fun.
Suddenly, there was an exclamation and the hold on me ceased. I leaped away and spun to see a dark-haired man plunging what looked like a . . . stake into the man that had been holding me. He burst into a cloud of dust. I blinked, wondering if I was more tired than I had thought or possibly dreaming.
Chester caught of glimpse of the man's face as he passed beneath the streetlight, going to help the red head. Wow. Personally, he liked skinny and blond, but he had to admit this guy was gorgeous in the major sense. Not that he was thinking about things like that at a time like this.
He watched in amazement and morbid fascination as together the red head and the newcomer finished off the next two attackers as he had the first. Then they stopped, and looked at each other, and I almost felt pain just from the look on the red head's face. Like he was dying. I couldn't see his face.
"Angel," the red head whispered.
"Ron," he replied. I bit my lip. I didn't want to interrupt what looked to be a reunion, but I had a few questions about the whole exploding-into-dust thing.
"What are you-what are you doing here?" the red head, Ron asked.
"I came to warn yo." he began, then broke off, glancing at me. I offered a tiny smile. Ron winced and turned to me too.
"Are you okay?" he asked. I nodded mutely.
"What-what were those?" I asked.
"Vampires," the red head replied shortly. I blinked. Took a deep breath. Wondered if it was time to place a call to the looney bin.
"Vampires," I repeated.
"They exist," Ron said shortly.
"Ron," the man said warningly. The red head shrugged in response.
"He obviously knew something was going on Angel. Besides, I'm not in an excuses mood tonight," the red head said, his voice sounding hard and hurt. Suddenly I started and looked at my watch. I was supposed to be back on stage.
"I-I have to go.go sing," I stuttered, gesturing in the direction of the Bronze.
"I'll walk you back," Ron said, and I nodded, really wondering what was going on. And who this red head was. And hadn't he just said vampires were real? The man, Angel, followed a few steps behind us.
"Thank you," I said, when we reached the backstage entrance Ron shrugged.
"No big," he said, "Hey, you're a really good singer." I blushed.
"Thanks," I murmured, and then heard the MC yelling at me. I winced. "I have to go." The red head nodded and gave him a little wave as he pushed the door open and walked inside.
"I'm right here," I said, getting the guy's attention. He pushed me out onstage. I stumbled forward and took a deep breath, summoning a smile and brushing a strand of light brown hair from my eyes. She walked forward and tried to concentrate on not making a fool of myself in front of the crowded club. Hopefully I succeeded. I was too distracted to tell.
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Ron's POV .
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I didn't move, couldn't move. I was afraid my Angel would disappear if I did, like he was some kind of dream. God knows, I'd dreamt this enough. Every night.
"Ron," he murmured. My head snapped up to look at him.
"Is that all you can say?" I asked coldly. He looked hurt. Why was I saying these things to him? I wanted to run into his arms and sob and let out all of the pain and misery of the last months. I wanted him to hold me and tell me that he loved me and he wasn't going away again.
But he wasn't holding me and I couldn't let myself go. If I kept him at arms distance, maybe it would be easier when he left again. Maybe.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"Sorry?" I repeated quietly, a deadly note in my voice. "You're sorry?"
"I just came back to warn you." And then I knew, for sure. He hadn't come back for me. He didn't want to be with me after all. The three months hadn't had an effect on him; they'd turned me into a wreck and they'd done nothing to him. He had come to warn me.
"To warn me?" I repeated, trying to make my voice sharp so he wouldn't hear the pain.
"Spike's coming back, he'll be here tomorrow or the next day," Angel said. "With Drusilla." my mind tried to expand to take that in, but all I could think of was Angel. He didn't miss me.
"Thank you for telling me. You can go now," I said, turning and beginning to walk away. I should go tell my friends what was happening, then I had better go to the library and consult with.with books or something, since Snape was on some kind of retreat. It had been a quiet summer and then when something *finally* happened, he was gone! Part of me wondered how I could possibly think that clearly when he was there.
"Ron, wait," he called, hurrying after me and grabbing my arm. I stopped and turned back to face him. He was so beautiful. "Ron, I came back for another reason too." my heart leaped.
"Why?" I whispered, not wanting to let the hope live.
"Because I needed to see you," he replied, and all my strength was gone then, suddenly, and the tears finally came.
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"Didn't you make some kind of deal with him or something?" Harry asked. I nodded.
"But he didn't exactly honor it when he came and kidnapped you guys, remember?" I pointed out.
"There is that," Hermione said.
"So why's he coming back this time?" Harry asked.
"Well the guy said he's back with Dru, so I'm thinking victory tour?" I hazarded, shrugging. I didn't really want to tell my friends that Angel was back yet. It was hard enough dealing with it on my own. And I still didn't think he was planning to stay.
"We should probably go talk with Snape," Hermione put in. I nodded.
"That was my next course of action. You guys can stay though." They looked at each other, then shook their heads.
"The band-er, the singer is done, so it'll go downhill from now on," Hermione said, glancing at the vacated stage. I nodded again. It had taken me a little longer to talk to Angel than I had thought, and I had missed most of the boy's second set.
"Right," I agreed, waiting for them to grab their coats.
"Excuse me.Ron?" a voice said. I turned to see the boy I had saved earlier. He was short with gold-brown hair and intelligent hazel eyes.
"Yeah?"
"I was wondering if I could ask you.some questions?" the boy asked. "I'm Chester." I shook his hand, summoning a smile.
"Sure. I'm sorry about dumping that on you earlier."
"No!" Chester exclaimed, shaking his head. "You saved my life. Why did you save my life?"
"It's my job," I explained. The boy gave me a blank look. "Sacred duty actually." Questioning look.
"Like, with benefits and stuff?" I sighed.
"Unfortunately no. No health insurance, no childcare-if I had any children," I frowned. "No money actually, so its kind of a bum deal." Chester smiled quickly, then went back to looking puzzled.
"So you.fight vampires for a living? Except, no living?" he asked.
"Something like ." I began, and was interrupted by Harry.
"Did he just say vampires?" Harry asked, overhearing the conversation, then looked at Chester and demanded, "Did you just say 'vampires'?" Chester nodded. My mouth twitched upward.
"Harry, this is Chester B. Chester, this is Harry P. and Hermione G. I saved Chester from vampires earlier and he kind of beat the truth out of me." Hermione and Harry were looking at me as if I were crazy. "Okay, I told him what they were."
Hermione scolded, Harry defended and Ron just shrugged. "We kind of have to go actually, are you done here?" I asked Chester. The singer nodded.
"I was about to go home and I saw you." Chester said, trailing off.
"Great, why don't you walk with us a little and I'll try to do the explainy- thing," I said, smiling. Ginny and Neville came up, hand in hand. Ginny's face lit up upon seeing Chester.
"You were so good!" she exclaimed. "I love your CD!" Chester glowed at the praise.
"Thank you," Chester murmured, his eyes gleaming.
"Chester's been initiated into our secret cult," Harry informed them. Chester looked alarmed and I slapped his arm lightly.
"What this doofus means is that he knows about vampires. I decided explanations are in order," I explained. Ginny smiled and Neville gave the singer a cool nod.
"Hey, I really liked your lyrics," he said. Chester grinned.
"My ambition in life," Chester said. "Do you play?"
"Neville is in a band!" Ginny exclaimed happily. "I'm a groupie!"
"You're the best groupie in the world," Neville murmured.
"What's it called?" Chester asked.
"Dingoes Ate My Baby," Neville answered as they all began walking out of the Bronze.
"Really? I love the Dingoes!" Chester exclaimed. "My friend sent me a tape a few years ago and I've been addicted ever since! This is so cool!"
"Hey, thanks," Neville said coolly.
"Did you say you were going home?" I asked, realizing something suddenly. Chester nodded.
"Why?" Chester asked.
"I thought you were from Canada or something," I said, frowning.
"Oh, I am, but this is the last stop on my tour and I have some time off before I have to go record my next CD in L.A. I thought I'd rent an apartment and stick around here for a while. So I did," Chester explained.
"Cool. I was supposed to be explaining, wasn't I?" I inquired. Chester nodded with a good-natured smile.
"Okay, picture this; beginning of the world, demons everywhere. Mortals come along and banish them, but the last demon left mixes their blood with a human, and vampires are born. Basically they live forever, can only be killed by sunlight, a stake through the heart, decapitation and so on. You become a vampire by having your blood sucked and then sucking blood from a vampire and it's this whole big sucking thing," I said, waving my hands around.
"Anyway, since there's all these big bad guys around, there's also someone to fight them. Namely me. Well, right now it's me. In every generation there's one boy or girl born with the power and skill to fight the vampires and so on. I'm called the Slayer and I have this sacred duty to save the world and all the people in it. Is any of this making sense to you?" Chester nodded slowly, looking slightly confused, but pretty good.
"I think so," Chester said slowly. I smiled. Harry patted his arm.
"It'll come to you," Harry promised.
"It took us all a while to get used to," Ginny said cheerfully. "Except for Neville." Chester turned to look at the musician. He shrugged.
"Living around a here, it explains a lot," Neville said.
"So why haven't I ever been attacked by vampires before?" Chester asked me.
"Well Hogsmade is .um.special in a bad way. Basically, there are these rifts between dimensions and the one in here goes straight to Hell. So all kind of nasties gravitate here, especially vampires. Come to think of it, you might not want to spend your vacation time here." Chester chuckled.
"I'll take that to mind," Chester said.
"Ooh, look gang, we're here!" Harry exclaimed. Chester looked up to see the darkened library.
"What's here?" Chester asked.
"Slaying HQ," I answered. "You want to come in? If you wait like ten, fifteen minutes I'll walk you home, and that would be much safer than.well, than me not walking you home."
"Sure," Chester said, still pretty shocked about the whole vampires-being- real thing. He followed us up the steps and waited as I unlocked the door. "Hey, who's that guy that was with you earlier?" Chester asked. I stopped. "Angel?"
"Angel," Harry repeated.
"Angel was here?" Hermione demanded. I winced and turned to face my friends.
"He was the one that told me Spike's coming," I said in as neutral a voice as I could muster. Chester looked from me to my friends, wondering if he'd done something wrong.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Hermione asked. I shrugged slightly, seeming to draw in on myself.
"I don't think he's staying. I just didn't want to discuss it," I said quietly. Hermione put a hand to her mouth and even Harry looked serious.
"You could have told us Ronnie," Harry said.
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Regular POV .
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"I know," Ron replied. "I just didn't want to talk about it." And then Chester got it. Ron loved Angel. And Angel had left Ron. Now Angel was back and Ron didn't think he was going to stay. Did Angel love Ron too? And if so, why had he left? And Angel had seemed pretty strong too, but Angel obviously wasn't this Slayer-thing. There was a long moment of silence.
"Why don't we go call Snape?" Harry suggested and the rest of them nodded and walked down the semi-dark halls of the school, Chester following behind, wondering what he was getting himself into.
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Meanwhile somewhere else . Somebody's POV .
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I walked into my favorite teacher's office after my last class.
"What's wrong," he asked. He sounded worried.
"It's kind of complicated right now, because of the whole kiss thing. You knew about that right? Of course you did cause well you know about these things. Well, I guess everybody knows about it. I mean they ignore all the demon activity in this place, but when a guy kisses his supposedly worst enemy once, okay don't look at me like that, three times, everyone knows about it. And it's not like I did anything worse than kiss him, and the second time he kissed me. Oh, I know what you're going to say, that now I'm blaming him, that he wanted it more than I did, but you'd be wrong," I rambled as I sat down in the desk chair. My favorite teacher was about to say something until .
"I mean, sure, it would look like I hated him all those years. That I had convinced myself that Ron would never be anything more than a Gryffindor, but it's just not true. You know when I knew that Ron was the one for me? The day we met. I knew my father would hate me if I had him as my friend even. The worst that would have happened would be if my father hurt him. His hair was like fire. I had never seen anything like it. It was exciting. Stupid huh? Don't answer that." Again I didn't let him answer me.
"So, why didn't I tell Ron all this before, probably because I was scared. I was afraid that if I told him about my feelings that he'd laugh, or worse that he would run kicking and screaming from the room, so, to protect my fragile male ego. And yes, I admit I have an ego, I tried to forget about it. Because it was easier to go through everyday putting off telling him how I felt, than to tell him how I felt. Now I've gone and ruined everything!" I shouted as I pushed myself out of the chair and started pacing around the small office. By now my teacher was just sitting there waiting for me to continue.
"I waited too long. I was a coward. He moved on. He had Angel. I'd given up on any chance with him. It made me so angry. I mean Angel is okay for a vamp, but I hated him, not because he had Ron, but because I was jealous that he had the guts to tell him how he felt. I knew that there was no way that Angel could ever love him the way I loved him. I know...that's my ego shining through again. I mean, that first time I kissed him; it was like ... I couldn't even describe it. It was how things should have been before my father's influence. But then it was wrong. The timing I mean. I did what I did, and now I think I've ruined anything I might have with Ron forever." I stopped a moment to collect myself.
"Now I feel guilty every time I look at him. I love him, but I can't look at him. Does that make any sense at all? I cared about was the feel of his lips on mine, and the smell of his hair and the sound of my heart pounding, because I knew this was what I truly wanted. Is that too much to ask?" I questioned, my back turned from the desk.
"I know what you're going to say. You're going to say that I don't deserve him ... that I hurt him ... and you know what? You're right. But, I'm selfish and I want him back. He's the one thing in this world that I truly love. Right now I'd take him anyway I could get him," I whispered this last request as I sunk back into the chair.
"You know," I continued, "I've never told anyone that. I mean since it all happened. I guess I just kept it bottled up inside, but for some reason it just came pouring out," I said turning towards the bookshelf. "You know Professor Severus, you're a really good listener." And with that said, I left his office just hearing what he answered.
"You are one strange boy Draco."
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T.B.C.
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PART 1 .
The singer was good. Besides that he was pretty unique. His songs tended to energize a room, and watching the couple's dance was a little more than Ron could handle at the moment. Ron sighed again, and tried very hard not to think of ... Not working. Ron slumped deeper into the chair. Harry, sitting on the other side of the table, watched his friend. "Ron." No response. "Ron!"
"Ron, are you okay?" Hermione asked, noticing her friend's lack of interest.
"I'm fine," Ron, answered, though they could all tell it was far from the truth. He hadn't been fine for three months. Three months and he still missed his Angel. Constantly. The song ended and the MC announced there'd be a small break.
"Ron."
"It's bloody unfair," Ron mumbled.
"You know, your parents asked you if you wanted to go," Harry said.
Hermione was about to say something, but Ron cut her off. "I know, it just my night job." Ron glanced up to see the young man leaving the stage, and then slid out of his seat. "I'm going to go get a breath of fresh air," Ron said. "I'll be back in a minute." His friend's watched him go with worry. They had known it would take him a long time to get over Angel, but this was starting to push it.
"He'll cop to either annoyance or rage, but he thinks he's too grown up to hurt from missing his family," Harry thought as he sadly watches his friend go out side.
Ron stepped out into the cool night air, wondering why. Images of Angel's face flashed through his mind. Hand in hand as they roamed the streets. That day Angel was safe. The sun didn't come out and they spent Christmas together. Now he was gone.
He walked around the corner, wanting to get away from the crowded front entrance. He just needed to be alone. Except he'd been saying that for months and being alone hadn't helped anymore than being with other people. All he wanted was to be with him, and that wasn't going to happen.
There was shriek from around the corner and Ron shook off his private misery to do his sacred duty. He ran into the next alley and saw the singer from the Bronze desperately trying to fend off three vampires, and not having much luck. Ron shook his head.
"Now, now, these aren't fair odds," he said, clucking his tongue. The vampires spun on him, forgetting the singer.
"Slayer," one of them snarled.
"You called?" Ron asked, and then attacked. He kicked one down and spun around to punch another. He grabbed the young man's arm, shoving him to safety behind him. The boy-Chester-had stopped shrieking and watched wide- eyed as Ron dropkicked the legs out from the third. The first was back, and grabbed his arms, pulling him. He kicked the second that was coming at him from the front and managed to propel himself back against the wall, stunning the vampire that held him. He loosened his grip and Ron escaped, grabbing him and flipping him over his hip to the ground. Ron grabbed a stake and glanced up, then realized he'd made a mistake. He'd forgotten the third one.
And the third one currently had hold of the singer.
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The Singer's POV .
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I tried very, very hard not to scream. This red head was obviously the only help I was going to get, so screaming wasn't going to get me anywhere. I didn't want to ruin my voice; I still had another set to play. But I was scared.
At first, it had looked pretty good once the other young man showed up. He was kicking some serious ass, then one of these, whatever they were decided to forget the red head and grab me. Not a good thing. The red head paused and saw my predicament. I winced and glanced at the other two guys. I was not feeling extremely confident about this. The two guys attacked the red head, while I stood frozen, afraid to move. The guy holding me snarled. He snarled. This was really not fun.
Suddenly, there was an exclamation and the hold on me ceased. I leaped away and spun to see a dark-haired man plunging what looked like a . . . stake into the man that had been holding me. He burst into a cloud of dust. I blinked, wondering if I was more tired than I had thought or possibly dreaming.
Chester caught of glimpse of the man's face as he passed beneath the streetlight, going to help the red head. Wow. Personally, he liked skinny and blond, but he had to admit this guy was gorgeous in the major sense. Not that he was thinking about things like that at a time like this.
He watched in amazement and morbid fascination as together the red head and the newcomer finished off the next two attackers as he had the first. Then they stopped, and looked at each other, and I almost felt pain just from the look on the red head's face. Like he was dying. I couldn't see his face.
"Angel," the red head whispered.
"Ron," he replied. I bit my lip. I didn't want to interrupt what looked to be a reunion, but I had a few questions about the whole exploding-into-dust thing.
"What are you-what are you doing here?" the red head, Ron asked.
"I came to warn yo." he began, then broke off, glancing at me. I offered a tiny smile. Ron winced and turned to me too.
"Are you okay?" he asked. I nodded mutely.
"What-what were those?" I asked.
"Vampires," the red head replied shortly. I blinked. Took a deep breath. Wondered if it was time to place a call to the looney bin.
"Vampires," I repeated.
"They exist," Ron said shortly.
"Ron," the man said warningly. The red head shrugged in response.
"He obviously knew something was going on Angel. Besides, I'm not in an excuses mood tonight," the red head said, his voice sounding hard and hurt. Suddenly I started and looked at my watch. I was supposed to be back on stage.
"I-I have to go.go sing," I stuttered, gesturing in the direction of the Bronze.
"I'll walk you back," Ron said, and I nodded, really wondering what was going on. And who this red head was. And hadn't he just said vampires were real? The man, Angel, followed a few steps behind us.
"Thank you," I said, when we reached the backstage entrance Ron shrugged.
"No big," he said, "Hey, you're a really good singer." I blushed.
"Thanks," I murmured, and then heard the MC yelling at me. I winced. "I have to go." The red head nodded and gave him a little wave as he pushed the door open and walked inside.
"I'm right here," I said, getting the guy's attention. He pushed me out onstage. I stumbled forward and took a deep breath, summoning a smile and brushing a strand of light brown hair from my eyes. She walked forward and tried to concentrate on not making a fool of myself in front of the crowded club. Hopefully I succeeded. I was too distracted to tell.
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Ron's POV .
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I didn't move, couldn't move. I was afraid my Angel would disappear if I did, like he was some kind of dream. God knows, I'd dreamt this enough. Every night.
"Ron," he murmured. My head snapped up to look at him.
"Is that all you can say?" I asked coldly. He looked hurt. Why was I saying these things to him? I wanted to run into his arms and sob and let out all of the pain and misery of the last months. I wanted him to hold me and tell me that he loved me and he wasn't going away again.
But he wasn't holding me and I couldn't let myself go. If I kept him at arms distance, maybe it would be easier when he left again. Maybe.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"Sorry?" I repeated quietly, a deadly note in my voice. "You're sorry?"
"I just came back to warn you." And then I knew, for sure. He hadn't come back for me. He didn't want to be with me after all. The three months hadn't had an effect on him; they'd turned me into a wreck and they'd done nothing to him. He had come to warn me.
"To warn me?" I repeated, trying to make my voice sharp so he wouldn't hear the pain.
"Spike's coming back, he'll be here tomorrow or the next day," Angel said. "With Drusilla." my mind tried to expand to take that in, but all I could think of was Angel. He didn't miss me.
"Thank you for telling me. You can go now," I said, turning and beginning to walk away. I should go tell my friends what was happening, then I had better go to the library and consult with.with books or something, since Snape was on some kind of retreat. It had been a quiet summer and then when something *finally* happened, he was gone! Part of me wondered how I could possibly think that clearly when he was there.
"Ron, wait," he called, hurrying after me and grabbing my arm. I stopped and turned back to face him. He was so beautiful. "Ron, I came back for another reason too." my heart leaped.
"Why?" I whispered, not wanting to let the hope live.
"Because I needed to see you," he replied, and all my strength was gone then, suddenly, and the tears finally came.
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"Didn't you make some kind of deal with him or something?" Harry asked. I nodded.
"But he didn't exactly honor it when he came and kidnapped you guys, remember?" I pointed out.
"There is that," Hermione said.
"So why's he coming back this time?" Harry asked.
"Well the guy said he's back with Dru, so I'm thinking victory tour?" I hazarded, shrugging. I didn't really want to tell my friends that Angel was back yet. It was hard enough dealing with it on my own. And I still didn't think he was planning to stay.
"We should probably go talk with Snape," Hermione put in. I nodded.
"That was my next course of action. You guys can stay though." They looked at each other, then shook their heads.
"The band-er, the singer is done, so it'll go downhill from now on," Hermione said, glancing at the vacated stage. I nodded again. It had taken me a little longer to talk to Angel than I had thought, and I had missed most of the boy's second set.
"Right," I agreed, waiting for them to grab their coats.
"Excuse me.Ron?" a voice said. I turned to see the boy I had saved earlier. He was short with gold-brown hair and intelligent hazel eyes.
"Yeah?"
"I was wondering if I could ask you.some questions?" the boy asked. "I'm Chester." I shook his hand, summoning a smile.
"Sure. I'm sorry about dumping that on you earlier."
"No!" Chester exclaimed, shaking his head. "You saved my life. Why did you save my life?"
"It's my job," I explained. The boy gave me a blank look. "Sacred duty actually." Questioning look.
"Like, with benefits and stuff?" I sighed.
"Unfortunately no. No health insurance, no childcare-if I had any children," I frowned. "No money actually, so its kind of a bum deal." Chester smiled quickly, then went back to looking puzzled.
"So you.fight vampires for a living? Except, no living?" he asked.
"Something like ." I began, and was interrupted by Harry.
"Did he just say vampires?" Harry asked, overhearing the conversation, then looked at Chester and demanded, "Did you just say 'vampires'?" Chester nodded. My mouth twitched upward.
"Harry, this is Chester B. Chester, this is Harry P. and Hermione G. I saved Chester from vampires earlier and he kind of beat the truth out of me." Hermione and Harry were looking at me as if I were crazy. "Okay, I told him what they were."
Hermione scolded, Harry defended and Ron just shrugged. "We kind of have to go actually, are you done here?" I asked Chester. The singer nodded.
"I was about to go home and I saw you." Chester said, trailing off.
"Great, why don't you walk with us a little and I'll try to do the explainy- thing," I said, smiling. Ginny and Neville came up, hand in hand. Ginny's face lit up upon seeing Chester.
"You were so good!" she exclaimed. "I love your CD!" Chester glowed at the praise.
"Thank you," Chester murmured, his eyes gleaming.
"Chester's been initiated into our secret cult," Harry informed them. Chester looked alarmed and I slapped his arm lightly.
"What this doofus means is that he knows about vampires. I decided explanations are in order," I explained. Ginny smiled and Neville gave the singer a cool nod.
"Hey, I really liked your lyrics," he said. Chester grinned.
"My ambition in life," Chester said. "Do you play?"
"Neville is in a band!" Ginny exclaimed happily. "I'm a groupie!"
"You're the best groupie in the world," Neville murmured.
"What's it called?" Chester asked.
"Dingoes Ate My Baby," Neville answered as they all began walking out of the Bronze.
"Really? I love the Dingoes!" Chester exclaimed. "My friend sent me a tape a few years ago and I've been addicted ever since! This is so cool!"
"Hey, thanks," Neville said coolly.
"Did you say you were going home?" I asked, realizing something suddenly. Chester nodded.
"Why?" Chester asked.
"I thought you were from Canada or something," I said, frowning.
"Oh, I am, but this is the last stop on my tour and I have some time off before I have to go record my next CD in L.A. I thought I'd rent an apartment and stick around here for a while. So I did," Chester explained.
"Cool. I was supposed to be explaining, wasn't I?" I inquired. Chester nodded with a good-natured smile.
"Okay, picture this; beginning of the world, demons everywhere. Mortals come along and banish them, but the last demon left mixes their blood with a human, and vampires are born. Basically they live forever, can only be killed by sunlight, a stake through the heart, decapitation and so on. You become a vampire by having your blood sucked and then sucking blood from a vampire and it's this whole big sucking thing," I said, waving my hands around.
"Anyway, since there's all these big bad guys around, there's also someone to fight them. Namely me. Well, right now it's me. In every generation there's one boy or girl born with the power and skill to fight the vampires and so on. I'm called the Slayer and I have this sacred duty to save the world and all the people in it. Is any of this making sense to you?" Chester nodded slowly, looking slightly confused, but pretty good.
"I think so," Chester said slowly. I smiled. Harry patted his arm.
"It'll come to you," Harry promised.
"It took us all a while to get used to," Ginny said cheerfully. "Except for Neville." Chester turned to look at the musician. He shrugged.
"Living around a here, it explains a lot," Neville said.
"So why haven't I ever been attacked by vampires before?" Chester asked me.
"Well Hogsmade is .um.special in a bad way. Basically, there are these rifts between dimensions and the one in here goes straight to Hell. So all kind of nasties gravitate here, especially vampires. Come to think of it, you might not want to spend your vacation time here." Chester chuckled.
"I'll take that to mind," Chester said.
"Ooh, look gang, we're here!" Harry exclaimed. Chester looked up to see the darkened library.
"What's here?" Chester asked.
"Slaying HQ," I answered. "You want to come in? If you wait like ten, fifteen minutes I'll walk you home, and that would be much safer than.well, than me not walking you home."
"Sure," Chester said, still pretty shocked about the whole vampires-being- real thing. He followed us up the steps and waited as I unlocked the door. "Hey, who's that guy that was with you earlier?" Chester asked. I stopped. "Angel?"
"Angel," Harry repeated.
"Angel was here?" Hermione demanded. I winced and turned to face my friends.
"He was the one that told me Spike's coming," I said in as neutral a voice as I could muster. Chester looked from me to my friends, wondering if he'd done something wrong.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Hermione asked. I shrugged slightly, seeming to draw in on myself.
"I don't think he's staying. I just didn't want to discuss it," I said quietly. Hermione put a hand to her mouth and even Harry looked serious.
"You could have told us Ronnie," Harry said.
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Regular POV .
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"I know," Ron replied. "I just didn't want to talk about it." And then Chester got it. Ron loved Angel. And Angel had left Ron. Now Angel was back and Ron didn't think he was going to stay. Did Angel love Ron too? And if so, why had he left? And Angel had seemed pretty strong too, but Angel obviously wasn't this Slayer-thing. There was a long moment of silence.
"Why don't we go call Snape?" Harry suggested and the rest of them nodded and walked down the semi-dark halls of the school, Chester following behind, wondering what he was getting himself into.
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Meanwhile somewhere else . Somebody's POV .
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I walked into my favorite teacher's office after my last class.
"What's wrong," he asked. He sounded worried.
"It's kind of complicated right now, because of the whole kiss thing. You knew about that right? Of course you did cause well you know about these things. Well, I guess everybody knows about it. I mean they ignore all the demon activity in this place, but when a guy kisses his supposedly worst enemy once, okay don't look at me like that, three times, everyone knows about it. And it's not like I did anything worse than kiss him, and the second time he kissed me. Oh, I know what you're going to say, that now I'm blaming him, that he wanted it more than I did, but you'd be wrong," I rambled as I sat down in the desk chair. My favorite teacher was about to say something until .
"I mean, sure, it would look like I hated him all those years. That I had convinced myself that Ron would never be anything more than a Gryffindor, but it's just not true. You know when I knew that Ron was the one for me? The day we met. I knew my father would hate me if I had him as my friend even. The worst that would have happened would be if my father hurt him. His hair was like fire. I had never seen anything like it. It was exciting. Stupid huh? Don't answer that." Again I didn't let him answer me.
"So, why didn't I tell Ron all this before, probably because I was scared. I was afraid that if I told him about my feelings that he'd laugh, or worse that he would run kicking and screaming from the room, so, to protect my fragile male ego. And yes, I admit I have an ego, I tried to forget about it. Because it was easier to go through everyday putting off telling him how I felt, than to tell him how I felt. Now I've gone and ruined everything!" I shouted as I pushed myself out of the chair and started pacing around the small office. By now my teacher was just sitting there waiting for me to continue.
"I waited too long. I was a coward. He moved on. He had Angel. I'd given up on any chance with him. It made me so angry. I mean Angel is okay for a vamp, but I hated him, not because he had Ron, but because I was jealous that he had the guts to tell him how he felt. I knew that there was no way that Angel could ever love him the way I loved him. I know...that's my ego shining through again. I mean, that first time I kissed him; it was like ... I couldn't even describe it. It was how things should have been before my father's influence. But then it was wrong. The timing I mean. I did what I did, and now I think I've ruined anything I might have with Ron forever." I stopped a moment to collect myself.
"Now I feel guilty every time I look at him. I love him, but I can't look at him. Does that make any sense at all? I cared about was the feel of his lips on mine, and the smell of his hair and the sound of my heart pounding, because I knew this was what I truly wanted. Is that too much to ask?" I questioned, my back turned from the desk.
"I know what you're going to say. You're going to say that I don't deserve him ... that I hurt him ... and you know what? You're right. But, I'm selfish and I want him back. He's the one thing in this world that I truly love. Right now I'd take him anyway I could get him," I whispered this last request as I sunk back into the chair.
"You know," I continued, "I've never told anyone that. I mean since it all happened. I guess I just kept it bottled up inside, but for some reason it just came pouring out," I said turning towards the bookshelf. "You know Professor Severus, you're a really good listener." And with that said, I left his office just hearing what he answered.
"You are one strange boy Draco."
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T.B.C.
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