Cupid

by Kaylee Snape

This is a humorous one-shot that my sister requested. It involves a Ron who just doesn't understand the decisions and desires of his friends and family, though it all works out all right in the end anyway.

Cupid

By KayleeSnape

This is dedicated to my sister, Sailor-Heart-Earth because she requested it. It is AU. Very AU.

"Cupid, draw back your bow

And let your arrow flow

Straight to my lover's heart for me"

Ron looked over at his girlfriend who was sharing a comfortable couch with him in the warm, red and gold embrace of the Gryffindor Common Room as he sighed in contentment. The sigh expressed a great many things. It said "I am very happy that we have reached the end of our seventh year without dying or being injured, and I am also glad that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has been defeated so that we no longer have the threat of death hanging over our heads, and I'm grateful that we have finally paired up as we were meant to from the start of first year, me with my beloved Hermione and my best friend Harry with my favourite sister, but I do wish that I had more of an idea of what I'm meant to do after graduation because I am far too old-fashioned to allow my brilliant wife to support me, and oh… I should propose soon, shouldn't I?"

Hermione squeezed his hand in reassurance, a squeeze that was much less loquacious than Ron's sigh, as all it said was "Not now, dear, I'm reading."

Ron glanced over at his best mate, who was currently running a hand through his messy black hair, making the back part stand up even more than it normally did, so that it looked as if someone had tried to give poor Harry anime hair. He could clearly read the confusion in Harry's emerald-green eyes, and he knew well his duty as best mate, number one sidekick, and soul brother: to determine the origin of Harry's unease. Ron knew that Harry was generally shy about sharing his feelings, especially after what had happened to Harry's godfather (Sirius had fallen through a veil and woken up in a strange place called "Narnia," where he had to battle a very angry mouse and a closet full of ancient, smelly fur coats before he ended up in England again.), so Ron knew that the mission of uncovering Harry's true feelings would require great tact and careful questioning. "Mate, what's wrong? You look like the Whomping Willow took a swipe at Hedwig."

Harry sighed. Ron didn't bother to translate it, though, because Harry began to speak, and Ron figured that he was about to say in plain English what his sigh had expressed in Sigh-tongue. "I dunno, Ron. I mean, I am very glad that I was able to graduate Hogwarts with top marks in Defence so that I can either become the next Head Auror or the youngest Hogwarts Professor in the history of the school, and I am also grateful to have a lovely girlfriend who happens to be your sister because it means that one day you and I will truly be brothers, but I can't help but feel that something's missing."

"Could what's missing be your lovely girlfriend, perhaps?" inquired Hermione, turning a page in her book, a thick tome entitled Calculus for Wizards: The Relationship Between Arithmancy and Muggle Maths.

"Hermione, you're right!" Ron scrambled up from his comfortable couch, pulling his irritated girlfriend along with him, as Harry paralleled his movements (the rising from the chair part, not the pulling of the girlfriend aspect, as Harry did not have the power to pull his girlfriend from thin air, though that would be a very handy power to have and the inventor would make millions in copyright fees).

"I happen to have the Marauder's Map in my bag right now—if only I had thought to look at it earlier!" Harry bemoaned his thoughtlessness.

"Don't worry, Harry," Ron comforted him. "After all, it was your Spider Sense that allowed us to figure out that something was wrong!"

"Oh no!" Harry exclaimed, the pain evident in his scratchy, deep voice; his sorrowful, worried emerald eyes; and the way that his hair stuck up in the back, as if it were yearning for the delicate hands that would smooth away all negative thoughts and feelings. "She's trapped in a dimly-lit, seldom-used corridor in the dungeons with Draco Malfoy! I knew that his supposed neutrality in the war was all a farce—he must be up to something nefarious! We must rescue her immediately! Gryffindors…" Harry paused for dramatic effect, and continued "to the Bat-Cave!"

They dashed out of the Common Room, flew down two flights of stairs, careened through a corridor and a half, and almost tripped over a tapestry when Ron came to a sudden realization: "Oh, I get it!" he said. "It's a Bat Cave because of Batman and because it's the dungeons, which are like caves, and caves are where bats live!"

"You forgot a layer of the parallel, Ron" Hermione sniffed, making Ron wonder just how she could run while sniffing and not have to gasp for air, but then she continued, "The potions classroom is in the dungeons, and many of our potions use different parts of the bat as well, so the parallel works on three disparate levels, a-"

"We have to hurry!" Harry shouted, interrupting Hermione before she could settle into full lecture mode. "Who knows what that git is doing to poor, innocent, helpless, maiden-in-distress-Ginny?"

As the Golden Trio rounded the next corner, they were forced to slow down in the face of the darkness that met their eyes. Someone had noxed all the lights! Harry's whispered "lumos" illuminated a picture right out of a gothic novel—Ginny was chained to the wall, her fire-red hair looking distinctly sanguine in the flickering wandlight as it covered half her face, casting shadows that looked like bruises and like death. Malfoy was standing next to her, and as the three newcomers watched, he tucked her hair behind her ear, and the three onlookers gasped in unison at the shockingly dark bruise that stood out startlingly amidst the connect-the-dot freckles that dusted the alabaster cheeks of the young girl.

"Get your hands off my sister, ferret-face!" Ron shouted, drawing his wand, but before he could level it at Malfoy, the blonde interrupted.

"Expelliarmus!" he shouted, catching all three wands adeptly and smirking a smirky smirk that looked eerily sinister in the shadowy corridor. "Don't you want to know what I want with your sister, Weasel?" he drawled in his very best upper-class, Wilshire manor, I-learned-it-from-my-too-rich-pompous-father sort of drawl.

"What do you want with my sister, Malfoy?" Ron growled, wondering if punching Malfoy's smug face would be worth coming back to Hogwarts just for an extra detention.

"Well you see, that's the beauty of it," Malfoy began twirling Harry's wand between his fingers, making the light dance in a way that was both sinister and seductive, "as I don't want Weaselette at all.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Harry spat, his emerald eyes blazing with fury.

"I want you, Potter. As the wizarding sensation George Michael sang, 'I want your sex.' I want your tongue in my mouth. I want your hands in my beautiful, platinum tresses, I want your lips on my-"

"We get the picture, Malfoy you poncey git!" Ron interrupted, disgusted. "Harry hates you! And besides, he's with my sister. He would never-"

But then Ron stopped speaking. He was too horrified to continue. He was considering writing to Lockhart in St. Mungo's just to see if he had regained enough of his memory to complete a proper Obliviate, or even if he hadn't regained enough of his memory, just so long as Ron never, ever, ever had to think about the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad sight before him: Harry had pushed the pale-faced ferret into the wall, not to beat him up, but to make out with him. It was like a train wreck—Ron couldn't look away, not even when Malfoy wrapped his legs around Harry's waist, and not even when Malfoy's hands—

Never mind. Ron could look away when Malfoy's hands went there. Looking away didn't mask the wet smacking sounds, though, and… was someone moaning??

"What about Ginny?" bellowed Ron in a voice that echoed eerily in the still-conveniently-empty corridor.

"Oh, right," Malfoy said as he pulled away from Harry's demanding lips. "Evanesco," Malfoy said, making Ginny's chains disappear.

"Hey," Harry protested, "couldn't you have kept them? They could have come in handy…"

Harry trailed off as Malfoy smirked evilly. "Don't worry, Potter—I know a few spells that could tie you up easily."

"Be serious, Malfoy. You are so the submissive!"

Before Malfoy could retort, Ron interrupted in a very strained voice. "Mate, what's gotten into you? You hate Malfoy, and he hates you!"

"I never really hated you Potter—I was only mad at you for rebuffing my offer of friendship on the Hogwarts Express first year, and then I was obeying my father's orders, but only because I was afraid of him and the abuse he heaped on me, not because I ever wanted to become a Death Eater. These last few years, I would only argue with you to keep up my image, and so that I could get my hands on you. You're not the Boy-Who-Lived any more, Potter—you're the Sexy-Man-Who-Lived-To-Fulfil-All-My-Fantasies." Draco smirked lasciviously and did something with his hidden hand that made Harry blush a bright red. Ron hoped it was just a pinch in an uncomfortable place.

"I never hated you either, Malfoy—Draco." Harry corrected himself. "I was merely trying to repress the thought of my sexual orientation, so I reacted negatively to my feelings of attraction towards you. Besides, it took me years of kindness, love, and professional therapy to overcome the abuse heaped upon me by the Dursleys, the Muggles with whom I stayed until Sirius came back from Narnia. Once I realized my true desires, though, I was too scared to act upon them because I never thought that you could return my feelings."

"What happened to that famous Gryffindor bravery?" Draco asked, smirking.

"I guess I needed a little Slytherin to bring it out, ssssexy" Harry hissed the last word in Parseltongue, causing Draco to throw back his head and gasp.

"Oh, Potter! Parseltongue is such a turn-on! Slytherin dorms—now!" With that, the two boys disappeared because Draco was ¼ veela, and veelas have the ability to apparate in the same manner as their remote, distant, highly removed cousins, the house-elves.

"Wha-what just happened?" Ron asked, stunned.

"Weren't you paying attention?" Hermione asked, sounding irritated. "Harry finally realized that he's an enormous poufter and went after the most well-known bent gent in Hogwarts. They've spent the last seven years in foreplay, so they must be having an amazing time right now."

Ron stared at her, flabbergasted. "How… how can you just stand there and accept it?"

"Well, Ron, besides the fact that the homoerotic subtext has been so obvious that their testosterone-fuelled battles couldn't be mistaken for anything other than an outlet for unresolved sexual tension, I had another way of noticing. I have an admission to make, Ron—I'm a lesbian."

"What? But you and I—but we—you can't be because we, um… we—"

Hermione interrupted him. "I know that we 'um,' but you had to have noticed that it didn't do anything for me. You didn't? Humph—you must be even more oblivious than I thought. I dated you for three reasons: one, I was trying to convince myself that I was at least bisexual; two, everyone expected the two of us to get together, and I really couldn't say no when you asked because I like you and value your friendship; and three, you were very close in appearance to the person who really has captured my heart."

Hermione trailed off, and Ron followed her gaze. "Who… GINNY!?"

Hermione sniffed. "Honestly, Ron, you can't possibly have three exclamation points and two question marks at the end of one word! The question marks themselves are unnecessary; all you need is the italicization to show your emphasis."

"Oh, Hermione," came a quiet voice from behind them, and the arguing ex-couple turned to face fully the red-haired subject of their conversation. (Well, Ron actually turned to fully face her, but Hermione would never dream of splitting an infinitive.) "That was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard!"

"The grammar correction?" Ron asked, confused again. He hadn't realized his sister was that much a stickler for outdated grammar rules that were more important for the written word rather than the spoken word anyway.

"No, the confession of love. I love you too, Hermione! I've always loved you. I thought I was in love with Harry, but really I only thought of him as an older brother. You were the one who comforted me when I was upset, massaged my back when I was stressed, and helped me pick out what clothes I should wear when I was distressed, upset, and completely naked and alone in my dorm room! You were always so thoughtful, but I thought you were in love with my brother, and it broke my heart."

Hermione ran over to her beloved and began running her hands through Ginny's long, soft, well-conditioned red hair. "No, no, no, I was in love with you! I've always been in love with you."

They gazed into each other's eyes with the passion of a thousand fruits before Hermione grabbed Ginny's hand and pulled her to her feet, saying "Come back to the room I have all by myself as Head Girl. I have a full-sized bed, and last Hogsmeade weekend, I visited Madam Priscilla's Adult Superstore and purchased a kneazle for our… pleasure." The two girls ran off hand in hand, giggling, with their loose tresses flying behind them. Neither of them spared a second glance for poor, confused Ron.

Ron wanted to set all of the recent events straight: his best friend had a boyfriend who was his ex-nemesis, and Ron's ex-girlfriend had a girlfriend who was the ex-girlfriend of his best friend and also his sister. That is, the girlfriend was his sister, not the ex-girlfriend of his sister. Ron's head hurt. He thought Hermione was rubbing off on him, and then he wondered how she managed to make it through the day without overdosing on headache potions. "I don't know what just happened!" Ron moaned.

"Don't worry, Ron, I'll explain it to you," came a new voice. Ron turned and saw a fairly pretty girl dressed in yellow and black. Hufflepuff, Ron figured, probably a year or two younger than he. She had brown hair and blue eyes that danced with humour.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Kaitlin Turpin—you must know my older sister, Lisa. She's a Ravenclaw in your year."

"Oh, yes, Lisa," Ron nodded knowingly, "Ravenclaw." To be honest, he had never paid enough attention to the Ravenclaws to figure out who was who. It took him eight and a half viewings of the Lord of the Rings trilogy before he could finally tell the difference between Merry and Pippin. "But how do you know me?"

Kaitlin giggled. "Well, my sister talks about you some, but really I've watched you from afar and fallen in love with you. I think we're soulmates. What else could have led me here on such a terrible night for you?"

"You're right!" Ron nodded vigorously. "I mean, this is such a dimly-lit and underused corridor. You could have no other reason for wandering down here at such and hour. Since we're soulmates, let's elope immediately!"

"I thought you'd never ask!" Kaitlin squealed, kissing Ron chastely on the cheek. After all, good girls did not use tongue until marriage, provided their boyfriends mention elopement in the first minute or so of a relationship. After five minutes without mention of marriage, though, the relationship was sort of a free-for-all. Whatever could get a guy to pop the question was fair game.

"Come on!" Ron shouted, eager to discover all of Kaitlin's admittedly abundant charms.

She giggled again. "You dropped your wand, silly!" Kaitlin pointed to the floor of the shadowy, dusty, seldom-used corridor where Ron's wand lay alone.

"You're right! Where did Harry's and Hermione's wands go?" he asked, looking around as if they might suddenly appear.

"They must have taken them when you weren't paying attention," Kaitlin half-scolded him. (It was only half a scold because she couldn't stop smiling. She really had looked forward to this day for ages.) "Now, tonight you may walk me back to my common room, and tomorrow, we shall Apparate from Platform 9 ¾ to Las Vegas, where we shall elope. I'm a year below you, but I've already had my birthday, so I can Apparate legally just as you can. How does that sound?"

"Sounds brilliant," Ron admitted, grinning like a loon, proud to have found perhaps the last heterosexual girl at Hogwarts… his soulmate.

---

Epilogue—Las Vegas

"Cupid—please hear my cry,

And let your arrow fly

Straight to my lover's heart for me"

"By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you wizard and wife. You may kiss the bride."

With those magical words, Ron Weasley leaned over to kiss his beautiful, beloved, brilliant Kaitlin Weasley. They kissed for what seemed like a too-brief eternity, and as their lips parted, they gazed into each other's eyes and saw the love that they felt echoed in the soul of the other. They could have stared at one another for ages, but they were rudely interrupted by an exclamation.

"Kaitlin?" came a voice that was shocked, surprised, and very familiar to Kaitlin, who turned around nervously to see the person she knew belonged to that voice.

"K-K-Kaylee… what a surprise!"

Kaylee grinned, flashing a smile that turned her rather plain face beautiful. "I suppose I don't have to ask you what you're doing here. And is that… well, I never—Ronald Weasley!"

Ron gaped at the brown-haired blue-eyed enigma who knew his name. "Erm, yes, and you are?"

Kaitlin sighed. "Ron, let me introduce you to my sister, Kaylee Turpin. She was Ravenclaw, like Lisa, but three years ahead of me—two ahead of you."

"It won't be Kaylee Turpin for much longer." She grinned wickedly, and continued, "Let me introduce you two lovebirds to my fiancé." She turned around and beckoned, and a looming figure all bedecked in black scowled down at the two newlyweds.

"P-P-Professor Snape!" they stuttered in unison.

"So there is another heterosexual couple at Hogwarts!" Ron said without thinking.

"Well, not completely heterosexual. I, erm, got to know Penelope Clearwater fairly well in my time, and Sev here-"

"What I did in the days of my youth is of not concern to either of these… newlyweds." Snape sneered scornfully, drawling out the last word as if it were some odious object as opposed to a joyous state of being.

"I hope you're not too bothered by newlyweds because you and I are about to become them," Kaylee reminded him, grinning at her good luck. She had fancied Professor Snape since her student days, but he was almost as stubborn and skittish as an agoraphobic hippogriff.

"IMAGES!!" Ron shouted, his voice too strangled to add more than three exclamation points where he really thought there ought to be about a google of them.

"Images?" his wife asked.

"Images," Ron agreed, quieter. "In my head. Newlywed images!" he moaned. It was not a good moan. It was an "I've just taken a bite of escargot and it wiggled on the way down" sort of moan. "Professor Snape images," he confided in what was meant to be a whisper but probably could have been heard across the Pond.

"Poor baby," his wife said patted his fire-red hair absently. "I'd better take him on to my hotel room to make sure that he doesn't, erm, have too many bad memories of this day."

Kaylee smiled knowingly at her younger sister. "You do that," she replied, "but please remember to-"

"STOP!" her fiancé thundered, interrupting her.

"What?" Kaylee asked, turning to Severus, concerned.

"Images," he whispered, closing his eyes as if in pain. "Ronald Weasley images!"

---

Images of a Lifetime Together

"Now Cupid, if your arrow makes her love strong for me,

Well I swear I'm gonna love her until eternity!"

The day after the wedding…

Kaitlin Michelle Turpin Weasley woke up to the smell of smoke. "What's for breakfast?" she murmured sleepily before she noticed that there was a Howler on the hotel mantelpiece, about to set the plastic flowers ablaze. (A/N: That really happened to me once, at a Christmas tea party—the candles burned down so low that the fake ivy leaves caught on fire, and the only male in attendance bravely leapt up and put out the flames.) She quickly jumped out of bed and opened it, hoping that any scorch marks left wouldn't be added to their hotel bill.

Suddenly, the voice of Mrs. Weasley filled the tiny room like first years fill themselves with candy on their first trip on the Hogwarts Express—in other words, filled to bursting. "RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY, HOW DARE YOU GET MARRIED WITHOUT INVITING YOUR FAMILY! I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO MEEET YOUR BRIDE, I'm sure you're lovely, dear, AND NOW SHE'S FAMILY! IF YOU DON'T BRING HER TO THE BURROW IMMEDIATELY, YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO GIVE ME GRANDCHILDREN!"

During Kaitlin's first pregnancy…

"Darling," came Ron's voice, in the quiet sort of tone that told his wife that this time, yes, he was really angry, and no, she wasn't going to get her way. "I don't care if the fashion is to name one's child after the deceased, we are not going to name our first son "Matt Mello Matsuda L Watari. I don't even know where you come up with these names! Do we actually know any Asians?"

"All right, Ron, what name did you have in mind?" asked Kaitlin, her voice made even more irritated by the buckets of hormones racing around in her body.

"All right, now hear me out—wouldn't it be awesome to name our first son Ninja?"

Approximately five and a half years later…

"Why, precisely, do you want to send Ignatius to a Muggle elementary school in America?" Ron asked, exasperated.

"I think that Iggy will have a perfectly wonderful time in America! And besides, this is only a temporary measure—merely until he gets his Hogwarts letter.

"But why Pokey Oaks Elementary in Townsville? There must be dozens of other elementary schools that are better suited to him in the UK. I don't see why-"

"You wouldn't let me name my first son Shinigami; the least you can do is let me choose his schooling!"

The evening of Iggy's first Hogwarts Sorting…

"No, Ronald, you are not allowed to send your brother-in-law a Howler just because Iggy was Sorted into Slytherin. You should be proud of your son no matter what House he's in. Besides, at least he has his uncle for his Head of House—you have to admit that that fact alone will help mitigate the troublemaking genes he inherited from your brothers."

Ron muttered something.

"And you are certainly not allowed to send a letter to Severus making fun of him for his first daughter becoming a Hufflepuff! As if being Hufflepuff were something of which to be ashamed." Kaitlin sniffed, and swore she wouldn't relent until Ron gave her the most fervent apology possible.

Oh, that was quite a pleasurable apology. Now to pick a name for a girl…

---

All lyrics come from the song "Cupid," which as been covered by such greats as Johnny Nash, the Supremes, Sam Cooke, and Amy Winehouse. I was listening to the Johnny Nash version while writing this, more specifically, the version on the soundtrack of BBC's Blackpool, starring David Tennant and David Morrissey.