QLFC round 9
cannons, keeper: write about a character completing a goal

word count: 1377

"Harry, d'you want to practice flying tonight?" Ron says between bites of eggs. "It's nice weather."

Harry sighs. "Can't. There's a Slug Club meeting."

"Come off it," Ron says. "Can't you get out of it?"

"Not if he wants to get that memory from Slughorn," Hermione says over the Arithmancy textbook she has balanced on the milk jug.

"And what's your excuse?"

Hermione doesn't look up from her book, but turns a little pink. "I happen to like the Slug Club meetings."

"That's it. I'm getting into this club," Ron says, setting his face with determination even as he watches Harry roll his eyes.

"Good luck, mate," Harry says.

Phase one of the plan is fairly painless. It's hard to spend his carefully saved sickles on crystallized pineapple instead of a massive chocolate bar from Honeydukes, but on the next Hogsmeade weekend, that's what Ron does. It costs a fortune—he could have bought so many sugar quills with this money—and it smells weird, but if crystallized pineapple is going to get him into the Slug Club, crystallized pineapple is what he needed to buy.

Potions class can't come soon enough. Ron actually does his essay on the uses of ginger root a full day in advance. He still has Hermione proofread it, though; he's not stupid.

Slughorn collects their essays, and then waves his wand to make the instructions appear on the board. Ron picks up his bag slowly, with exaggerated motions.

"Oh, no," he says, as loudly as he thinks he can get away with. "I forgot to take out my potions book…"

Hermione rolls her eyes at him, but Ron takes out the book, purposefully dislodging the bag of crystallized pineapple. It falls to the floor with a satisfying sound, which even echoes a bit off of the dungeon walls. About half the class turns to look at him—Ron can feel his ears heating to bright red—but so does Slughorn, so it's all worth it.

"What's this, my dear boy?" Slughorn says, walking over in that strange way of his. A man that rotund just shouldn't be this graceful, but he seems to slide across the floor like a duck through water.

"Oh, this?" Ron picks up the crystallized pineapple, taking care to hold it so that the label faces Slughorn. "Just something I picked up in Hogsmeade." He waits a moment, willing his ears to cool off. "D'you want some?"

Slughorn chuckles—really chuckles, putting his hand to his belly and everything—and for a moment, Ron is elated. Then, Slughorn starts to shake his head. "Very kind of you to offer, Mr. Weasley, but have you forgotten that I don't allow food in my classroom? With the kind of potions we're mixing up this year, it just isn't safe."

"I'm, er, sorry, Professor—"

"Five points from Gryffindor," Slughorn says, shaking his head some more and tutting under his breath.

Next to him, Hermione is doing a very bad job of concealing a smirk.

"Shut up," Ron mutters. Clearly this is going to take a bit of doing.

This new plan is foolproof. According to Harry, Lily Evans got into Slughorn's good books just by being good at potions. Ron isn't delusional; he can't keep that up for the whole year, but one class feels doable. He finds out what potion they'll be making beforehand and reads the directions over and over again. He finds a book in the library on the exact right way to crush Scarab beetles, the way to measure out nettles. Ron is ready to brew the hell out of this potion.

Potions class rolls around, and brew the hell out of this potion he does. Ron crushes his Scarab beetles perfectly, collecting every last drop of juice. His nettles are measured down to the milligram. After an hour, Ron is drenched in sweat, but the contents of his cauldron are a perfect aquamarine. He fills a vial with it, and then another, just to be sure.

"That looks quite good," Hermione says begrudgingly. Ron looks over to her cauldron, unsurprised to see the same aquamarine shade.

"Hopefully good enough to get me into the Slug Club," he says, getting up to turn in his potion. He's still sweating terribly from the entire ordeal—it's a good thing their robes are black instead of gray. Ron wipes his brow as he walks past Seamus' cauldron, and can't help but look inside to see… aquamarine. Bloody perfect aquamarine. He turns to Terry Boot's cauldron, and there it is again. Even Neville's is holding a vial of perfectly made potion, and he hasn't even broken a sweat.

Ron drops off his vial at Slughorn's desk and trudges back to his seat, where he immediately begins to sulk. He doesn't even want to be in this stupid club, anyway. It's all rubbish, he doesn't need some old man who doesn't know how much emerald green is too much telling him what to think. He doesn't need the Slug Club.

"Where are we going again?" Ron asks. Harry's dragging him somewhere, but he doesn't really care where; he can love Romilda Vane from anywhere. "Oh, mate, are we going to see Romilda Vane? Let's go see Romilda, that's such a great idea."

Harry sighs like Ron's said something especially trying, which he hasn't. "We're going to Slughorn's office to get the antidote to this bloody love potion," he says.

"Love potion? I hope it won't get in the way of my feelings for Romilda."

All too soon, they're sitting in Slughorn's office. Professor Slughorn is wearing a set of truly awful emerald green pajamas and rifling through one of his cabinets. Harry has just explained why they're here, but Ron's forgotten already, and it seems impolite to ask.

"Here you go, my boy," Slughorn finally says, holding out a flask of sweet-smelling potion.

"What's this?" Ron says.

Slughorn starts to explain, but Harry interrupts him. "It'll help you look good for Romilda," he promises, so Ron downs it in one sip.

The sweet smell is deceptive; it burns his throat on the way down, and he coughs. "What did I… What just happened? Did I—" The memory of the last half hour is strangely fuzzy, but he remembers talking about some girl named Romilda a lot, and making an absolute fool of himself.

"You accidentally ate some cauldron cakes with a love potion inside," Harry says. Mercifully, he doesn't say anything more in front of Slughorn, but a barely concealed smirk assures Ron that there'll be plenty of teasing later.

"Yes, well, you're all better now!"

"Thanks, Professor," Ron says, standing up to leave.

"Hold on, my dear boy!" Slughorn booms. "I think this is cause for celebration."

Harry and Ron exchange a look, but sit back down. Slughorn reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a bottle of mead.

"Now, I've been saving this as a gift for Dumbledore, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind it being put to good use…" Slughorn removes three cups from the drawer as well, and pours out the mead.

"To antidotes," Slughorn says, raising his cup in toast. It feels like he wants to say more, a lot more, so Ron takes a drink.

Immediately, his throat begins to close. The cup falls out of his hands, clattering to the floor. It's such a fast sound when everything else has slowed down; all he can do is clasp at his throat and gasp for air, mouth open, until, mercifully, something is thrown into his mouth, and it all stops.

Ron hunches over in his chair, gasping for breath. Harry's hand is on his shoulder, firm and anchoring.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm… Harry, you saved my life," Ron says.

"A bezoar!" Slughorn says, clearly amazed. "However did you think of that, Harry?"

"I, uh…" Harry looks at Ron, and then raises his eyebrows. "Ron told me about it, actually. Yeah, he told me they're a great all-purpose antidote."

Slughorn looks like he doesn't know whether to believe this. If he's impressed by Ron's fake potions knowledge, or just pitying him for having almost died on Slughorn's own mead, it doesn't matter, because Slughorn says, "Ronald, have you heard of my Slug Club?"

Almost dying, Ron thinks, is totally worth it.