It all began just as a kind of a thing between Harry and Ron. Ron had remarked that Harry seemed to enjoy being in the air/flying a broomstick…a lot more than most people and a lot more than was generally considered ordinary.

"I don't know," Harry said in return. "I just kind of like it. The feeling of being afloat in the air. It's so unrestrained, so free, so exhiliarating…so magical."

Hermione, who was there at the time, gave him a look.

"Harry," she said in the kindest voice possible. "You know, you actually are a wizard. And you actually can do magic. Some of the things you've done-like defeating a Dark Lord using only Expelliarmus-were a lot more magical than flying a broomstick." By this point, her voice had stopped being kind and started to sound just a little preachy. "I mean, any moron can ride a broomstick, even if he hasn't even the slightest grasp on magical theory."

"Hey!" Ron said at that point. "Flying on a broomstick is an art. You just don't appreciate it."

"What?" Hermione sniffed. "Because I'm not some kind of strong manly man like you two? It's just a sport."

Ron and Harry exchanged a look. Girls. (Except Ginny. And Angelina Johnson. And quite a few girl Quidditch players, actually. So maybe just bookworm girls?)

"But yeah, Harry," Ron said. "I get it. You like flying, and that's cool, mate. Just a little strange how much time you spend in the air."

"Not enough," Harry said wistfully. "I could stay up in the air all day."

"Yeah, me too," Ron agreed. He's always been almost as into broomstick flying as Harry, and perhaps even more into Quidditch.

Hermione made a small disbelieving noise.

"What?" Harry asked.

"That's complete nonsense," Hermione protested. "I mean, I get that you like flying, but I know you two. You would get bored and restless, and besides, Ron could never skip lunch!"

Harry was about to sigh and tell her it had been a hypothetical scenario that would never actually happen, but Ron spoke first. "I could skip lunch."

"Just to stay on a broomstick all day? I doubt it."

"Well," Ron said angrily. "I bet I could stay in the air longer than Harry could, anyways."

Harry, annoyed at being drawn into this, retorted, "Don't be ridiculous. I enjoy flying much more than you. And I'm better at it!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Not to boast or anything, but Seeker, remember? And I fly way more than you in my free time!"

"Hey, just because I have better things to do-"

"Boys, boys, you're both good at flying, can we finish our homework now?" Hermione interrupted. Harry and Ron, who had both forgotten quite some time ago that they had actually gotten together to do homework, sent her simultaneous glares.

"No," they both said at once.

"He doesn't get it!"

"I'm better at flying than he is!"

"Yeah, but he has no patience. I could stay up in the air hours longer."

"No way!"

It took a few minutes for Hermione to quiet them down again. She sighed when they were finally quiet, though still glowering. "Let me guess. Neither of you is going to stop harping on this until the matter is settled."

The boys nodded.

"And if we don't settle it, there will be a major rift in your friendship and things will be awkward. Like they are every couple months."

The boys nodded.

"All right then. Let's settle this."

/…/…/

When Hermione had said they would settle the matter, Ron and Harry had assumed that it would be settled with words and talking it out. But since the next day was Saturday and they had nothing to do, it seemed that Hermione had come up with something slightly different.

She got them up at around six o'clock in the morning and announced that this was it, they were just going to have to see how long they could stay in the air, and whoever stayed in the air longer would officially be the winner both of the contest and of the argument.

"And what does the winner get?" Ron said with narrowed eyes. "The loser bowing to him?"

Harry shuddered slightly at the thought. Not that he was going to lose or anything, just…

"No," Hermione said, shaking her head dramatically, brown curls swishing back and forth. "The loser simply has to buy the winner five Galleons worth of candy."

Ron gaped. Five Galleons was a lot of money.

"Of course," Hermione added. "Half of that candy goes to me as referee and the person who came up with the contest. And as your best friend."

Harry nodded. He would far rather give candy to Hermione anyways, though she was hard to buy candy for. She absolutely refused to accept Sugar Quills, for one thing.

Ron scowled, and then nodded determinedly. If he did not have the money to pay for losing, then he would just have to win.

So Harry and Ron both got their brooms and went soaring into the air. So that Hermione could make sure they adhered to the rules and did not land or play Quidditch at any point, they stayed hovering over the Quidditch pitch from that point on.

This was all fine until the Slytherin Quidditch team showed up and announced that they had booked the pitch. Hermione tried to explain about the whole contest. But Slytherins never listened to Hermione.

So a few minutes later, the entire Slytherin Quidditch team was up in the air in front of Harry and Ron, demanding an explanation. Draco was leading them, of course. Even though he was not technically captain of his team, he was still much respected in the Slytherin house.

"Potter!" Draco shouted. "What are you doing here? My team has the pitch booked for the next five hours!"

Harry narrowed his eyes. Of course, Draco was flying far enough away that he probably couldn't see his eyes anyways, but it was the thought that counted. "It's none of your business, Malfoy."

"It is!" Draco shouted back, his face twisted into a scowl. "You're destroying our practice!"

"So practice around us!" Harry yelled. "Ron and I are competing to see who can stay on our brooms in the air the longest. It's a thing. You're not going to interrupt us!"

Draco was confused. "Wait, what? What kind of a competition is that?"

So he flew closer, and Harry and Ron, between insults, explained.

Draco snorted. "Ha! An endurance competition between you two? That's setting the bar low."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ron demanded.

"Well," Draco drawled. "You're both rather…Gryffindor. In fact, if I had to choose two obviously and terribly Gryffindorly Gryffindors from the history of Gryffindors, they would be you two. And Gryffindors, you know, they just are not known for their patience. Any Slytherin could beat one easily."

Ron's eyes narrowed. (Draco was nearby enough now to notice and narrow his eyes right back.) "Oh, really? You willing to test that?"

And that was how Draco and a couple other Slytherin Quidditch players ended up joining the contest as well. The rest of the Slytherin team went down to the main building to have breakfast…and spread the news.

/…/…/

It was approximately ten o'clock when the Gryffindors showed up.

Well, not all the Gryffindors. But a good number of them. Dean Thomas. Angelina Johnson. And of course Fred and George showed up as well.

In a few minutes they were all in the air as well, hovering in front of Harry, Ron, Draco and the other Gryffindors with serious faces.

"Harry," Fred said sadly. "We've heard something about your starting some kind of a contest with Ron. Something about seeing who can stay up in the air the longest. It's all very good, but what we'd like to know is…"

"…If you were going to start a flying contest," George continued. "Then why weren't we notified?"

"You too, Ron," Fred said sternly. "You're our brother. You shouldn't leave us out of things like this."

"Ginny looked annoyed too," George sighed. "But she said she had studying to do so she wasn't interested."

Ron looked away from the twins guiltily. "It wasn't going to be a flying contest," he protested. "I was just going to see if I could stay in the air longer than Harry because he said…"

"Oh sure," Fred broke in. "You were just going to hang out with Harry. These days you spend so much time with Harry it's like he's more your brother than we are."

"No offense, Harry," George added. "We do think of you as a brother and all, surrogate Weasley without the freckles, but it's still rather thoughtless."

"Yeah," said Fred. "Ron, Harry, how could you do this to us?"

"We've been betrayed," said George.

"Our hearts are broken," said Fred.

"Forever," George added.

Fred nodded. "Well, now that we've mentioned that, we're joining the contest," he announced, suddenly cheerful. "And…"

"We fully expect to win," George added. "All of you gits are going to have to buy us candy."

"Which we will enjoy."

"Extremely."

"And share with none of you."

"Oh," George said as an afterthought. "And Angelina and Dean are joining too."

Ron scowled. "This isn't a public contest, you know."

"Oh, just let them join," Draco said with an easy smirk. "The more Gryffindors join, the more I'll end up beating eventually, when I win."

Draco always knew how to push Ron's buttons. Ron scowled at him before turning back to Fred and George. "Fine. You can join. But," he added, biting out his words. "You better outlast Malfoy."

"Of course," the twins chorused, smirking nearly identical smirks.

"Not that you're going to win," Ron said hastily. "That's still gonna be me."

"Of course," they replied, the smirks only widening.

/…/…/

And then Snape showed up.

He did not come up on a broomstick though. Instead, he stood around below the Quidditch pitch talking to Hermione, who was still watching. Harry narrowed his eyes. What did Snape have to say to Hermione?

Then Hermione turned, and muttering something, tapped her throat with her wand. It became obvious that she had just cast a Sonorus when she started yelling, "Harry!" at about five times her normal volume.

Harry winced.

"Harry! Get your butt down here!" she yelled, her voice echoing all around the pitch. "Professor Snape wants to talk to you!"

Harry groaned. Turning to Ron, Draco, Fred, George and the others who had shown up, he muttered, "I'm not out of the competition until my body touches the ground, okay?"

The others shrugged. Draco smirked. "Looks like you've gotten yourself in trouble again, Potter."

Harry would have loved to answer that, but then Snape's voice came up instead of Hermione's and twice as loud. "Get down here NOW, Potter."

So he got down there immediately. What else was he supposed to do?

Snape looked extremely displeased, but he at least bothered to take the Sonorus charm off himself before speaking again. "Potter. I need you for Remedial Potions immediately."

"But," Harry protested. "But it's a Saturday. We never do Remedial Potions classes on Saturdays."

Snape sneered, "I can assure you that no one is less pleased about this than me. The Headmaster has decided your not learning fast enough is a result of inadequate lessons rather than lack of effort, and so has informed me that from now on you shall have lessons on Saturdays as well."

Harry groaned. Occlumency lessons made his head hurt enough when they were only once a week.

"Now, Potter," Snape said. "If you're quite finished hovering in the clouds for no apparent reason, you can come back to my office now and we can begin the lesson. I have already wasted a half hour searching for you and I actually have work to do, despite what some idiots would like to believe."

"Sir," Harry asked. "Could I possibly stay on my broom during the class?"

Snape gave him a Look. "No."

Harry groaned again. As he stepped onto the ground and handed his broom to Hermione for safekeeping, he heard a whoop from the sky above. Vaguely he wondered if it was the Weasley twins, or Draco, or Ron. Or possibly all of them.

/…/…/

Around two o'clock, the spare Slytherins gave up and landed, leaving Draco to continue in their stead. They liked flying (they were Quidditch players!) and they certainly wanted to beat the Gryffindors, but they had eaten neither breakfast nor lunch due to this competition, and they were starting to get hungry.

Angelina Johnson and Dean Thomas followed their example, leaving the Weasleys to fight for the Gryffindors.

Three Gryffindors. Three Weasleys. One Slytherin. One Malfoy.

It was on.

Ron and Draco did not talk very much in the time that followed, only occasionally throwing insults back and forth about Ron's lack of money and Draco's family's Death Eater tendencies. Their were long periods of time where they would just glare at each other, saying nothing.

Neither of them had had breakfast or lunch either, and their stomachs were giving them some trouble about this. The hunger pangs translated into more and more irritation and anger, and the insults got more and more extreme.

"I'll bet your father licks You-Know-Who's boots!" Ron shouted over at four o'clock.

As for Draco, who had until now rarely had to go hungry in his life, he was at the point where he knew he should be insulting but instead was thinking about whether boots would taste good if you put salt on them. No, the Dark Lord would kill him if he put salt on his boots. Could he eat the boots without salt?

Wait, no, this was the part where he was supposed to shout an insult back.

"I bet your father only refuses to join the Death Eaters because it doesn't pay well enough!" he shouted. Actually, joining the Death Eaters paid quite well, though it was a risky business. But Weasley probably didn't know that.

Ron roared, "MALFOY!"

So Draco shouted back, "WEASLEY!"

"MALFOY!"

"WEASLEY!"

"MALFOY!"

"WEASLEY!"

"MAAAALFOOOYYYY!"

Meanwhile, Fred and George were not stressed out at all. They just hovered in a different part of the pitch and sang the Howarts School Song. In many different ways. Sometimes they sang it falsetto. Sometimes they sang it so deeply and ominously that Voldemort would have flinched (though not Snape). Sometimes they sang it fast and staccato, sometimes slow and drawn out. And sometimes they sang it in different parts, testing out how well they could harmonize and how terribly they could clash.

At six o'clock, Ron was starting to look tired. Then at seven, he flew over to Fred and George's corner of the pitch.

"Look, Fred, George," he said hesitantly. "The point of this whole contest was to see if I could stay in the air longer than Harry, you know?"

They glanced at each other. "Yeah."

"And I've already beaten Harry. So I'm just going to leave beating Malfoy to you, okay?"

The twins glanced at each other again and grinned.

"Sure, Ronniekins, you can trust us to do that."

"All right," Ron said, relieved. "I'm just going to get dinner then."

So he landed and went off to the Great Hall to have dinner. Fred and George, who had brought dinner and lunch with them in their pockets when they first joined the contest, grinned. Only one more to go.

So they kept on singing the Hogwarts School Song, only more gently and softly, because they had a plan. And it was brilliant.

Around eight o'clock, Harry returned to the pitch. "Hermione, you've been out here for a long time," he commented.

"Well," Hermione said with a shrug. "I am a referee, after all. I must take my duties seriously. Besides, I knew this could last a long time. I brought food with me beforehand."

Harry nodded. "How much longer do you think this is going to last?"

"I don't know," Hermione said. "It could last all night. I suggest you go to bed, Harry. You had Occlumency today and you look tired."

Harry sighed. "All right."

"Remember to clear your mind before sleeping," she called out as he left. But he was already too far away to hear her.

/…/…/

At ten o'clock at night, Fred and George finally put their ultimate plan into action. First, they flew up to Draco.

"Hey, Malfoy," George called out, trying to sound friendly. "So you thinking of quitting any time soon?"

"As if," Draco snarled. Usually he would have said the words in a sophisticated sneer, but just now he was too tired and hungry to bother.

"Ah well," Fred said. "If that's how you feel. Hey, maybe a song will cheer you up. George?"

And they started singing.

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, teach us something please…"

Usually Draco found the Hogwarts School Song completely obnoxious, what with the fact that it had no real established tune and that the Weasley twins usually sang it in the most annoying voice and tone possible. But tonight it actually sounded all right. They were not singing it very loudly or exuberantly, but gently and sweetly, with George on a harmony that could have made one weep. Particularly if that one was very tired and hungry.

At ten thirty, after Fred and George had sung twenty-six renditions of this particular version of the song, Draco fell asleep…and fell off his broom.

Beneath, Hermione cast a lightning fast Cushioning Charm. Draco came to the ground as gently as if he'd fallen onto a pillow. The fact remained that a few seconds later, his whole body was on the ground.

He didn't even wake up.

Fred sighed in relief. "Finally. I thought the git would never fall asleep. I am never singing that song again, even if I have to leave the school a year early to avoid it."

"I dunno," George said. "I think I liked that version. How about another few encores?"

"Oh shut up."

/…/…/

And so Fred and George received a ludicrous amount of candy.

The End.

(But Harry still claimed that he would have won if not for Snape's evil interference, and Ron still claimed that he had won fair and square. And then they both wanted a rematch, but they did not get one. Hermione was tired of being a referee.)

Author's note:

This story was written for a prompt on the forum For the Love of Harry Potter, which has a monthly challenge if anyone is interested. The prompt was for two characters to compete in some kind of competition and get in trouble when fighting over who was going to win, and to include the words button, candy and pillow and the phrase "Get your butt down here!" I am not sure I actually filled all these criteria, but oh well. I tried.

Reviews would be much appreciated.