Disclaimer: Just borrowing J.K. Rowling's characters! Everything belongs to her, even the brilliant title of Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches!
Title:
Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches
Summary:
It's the end of the battle and Voldemort is vanquished. Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione can now pursue normal lives–or as normal as it gets when one is a wizarding hero. But after obsessing over Voldemort so much, Harry, Ron, and select other wizards (ahem, Neville) realize that they know nothing about romance or relationships.
Enter Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches!
(Takes place right after the war is over and nineteen years before Albus Severus Potter ever set foot on the Hogwarts Express.)
Acknowledgments:
My playa friend, S, who gave me some really awesome (and hilarious) suggestions and scenarios. And my supercalifragilisticexpialidocious beta, J.
Introduction: So You Want to be a Charmer
June 1999:
Harry Potter jolted awake and sat straight up as if on a spring.
His sheets were a rumpled mess around his bare legs, and his skin was clammy and covered in a thin layer of perspiration. He was having difficulty breathing, so he breathed in through his mouth a few times. Automatically, he traced the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.
Except it wasn't the scar that woke him up. Truthfully, his scar hadn't bothered him since Voldemort's fall last year.
It was something else. The recurring nightmare that has been plaguing him for at least a month now. Spilled wine... shattered glass... an indignant shriek... his blumbering apology...
Harry gulped.
Grabbing his glasses from his bedside table, he padded barefoot and bare-chested from his bedroom to the kitchen of the flat that he and Ron shared. After the war, there were some rather titillating real estate deals offered to him. (A seven-room, pillared manor in Hertfordshire!) But he didn't want something handed to him on a golden platter. Harry didn't want a monster of a house to rival Malfoy Manor; he wanted something cozy that he worked hard for.
Hence the two-room flat at Diagon Alley that he shared with Ron, who cheerily christened it their "bachelor pad."
Harry fetched a glass from the cupboard and poured himself a glass of milk before frowning at the expiration date etched on the carton. They really must stop relying on Mrs. Weasley to stock up the kitchen and get their own groceries once in a while.
He picked up the copy of Rita Skeeter's autobiography on Snape (Severus Snape: Scoundrel or Saint?) which Ron had given him for Christmas as a gag gift and settled down on their comfy suede couch to read it for the millionth time. In front of him, on the glass coffee table, was an another Rita Skeeter autobiography entitled The REAL Deal About Harry Potter, which was a bunch of cockamamie theories on him (like how he allegedly uses Voluminous Volume shampoo to "induce the sheen and bounce of raven-black hair he sports").
"You're reading that nonsense again?" Ron's bleary voice sounded from behind him just as Harry was getting to the chapter about Snape being Harry's actual father. As always, Rita Skeeter found out an inkling of the truth (Snape's friendship with his mum) and totally blew it out of proportions.
"You're the one that bought it, mate," Harry quipped, flipping a page. Ron joined him at the couch in a tatty old bathrobe and striped pajama bottoms, his red hair sticking out oddly in the back.
Ron yawned. "So what the bloody hell are you doing in the middle of the night, reading about Snape?" He suddenly wore a sober expression, clasping Harry on the shoulder. "Is there something you need to tell me?"
"Come off it!" Harry shrugged off Ron's hand as the latter chortled. "Can't sleep. That's all."
Ron seemed more sympathetic now. "Dreaming about You-Know-Who again?"
Harry shook his head, deliberately avoiding his friend's eyes.
"Sirius?" Ron pressed on, seemingly more awake now and ready to be Dr. Ron, the therapist. When Harry said no, the lanky redhead began counting off on his fingers. "Let's see... Dumbledore? Lupin? Tonks? Hedwig? Dob–"
"IT'S NOT ABOUT THE WAR!" Harry finally confessed loudly, closing the book with a snap. Ron looked confused.
"Sooo– wha– huh?"
Harry sighed. He looked downward and fiddled with his thumbs. "It's just...you know...Ginny...tomorrow night..." Ron stiffened beside him.
"What about tomorrow night?" Ron said in a tight voice, jaw clenched. Harry looked up and realized that Ron was TOTALLY thinking of the wrong thing.
"No! No! Not THAT!" he assured his friend who relaxed almost immediately. "It's just, you know...the other thing."
Ron still didn't seem to get it, and frankly, Harry didn't blame him. "What other thing? Is there a problem with the date arrangements? I thought you've made the reservations for ages."
Harry nervously flattened the back of his unruly (and NOT Voluminous Volume-enhanced) hair. "That's just it. The date." He looked at Ron.
Nope, Ron still didn't understand.
"But you've been on dates before Harry!" Ron exclaimed, his brow furrowed.
Harry groaned and put his head in his hands. "You mean my one DISASTROUS date with Cho at Madam Puddifoot's in fifth year where she cried over another bloke??" He could feel his friend shifting uncomfortably next to him.
"Err...okay, yea, point taken. But you've spent loads of time with Ginny! And she's not a bloody water-hose like Cho. There's no reason to get nervous now."
Harry, his head still buried in his hands, spoke up again, somewhat muffled. "But we've never been on a real date." He looked up at Ron, his hands hanging lifelessly down. "I wouldn't know how to behave in a...date setting."
After a few minutes of awkward silence, Ron sighed, too, and patted Harry on the back. "Blimey, where's Hermione when you need her?" Harry's other best friend, who lived in a one-room studio not far from their flat, was visiting her parents now that the Grangers were back from Australia. Hermione had sent an owl saying that she would be back the day after tomorrow.
Harry nodded, rubbing his temple with his fingers. With frustration in his eyes, he said to Ron, "I mean, I know it's stupid. If I could get rid of Voldemort, I can definitely go on a date with Ginny."
Ron said to him pityingly, "Unfortunately, those two aren't the same, mate."
"Yea, unfortunately," Harry echoed. "It's just that I don't want to ruin tomorrow night for us. I just want everything to be...perfect. For her. It's hard enough having to date a 'marked' man, as that Skeeter woman said...I don't want her to think I'm a total idiot, too," Harry said truthfully. He searched his brain for the right words. "I just want to be charming."
Ron suddenly jerked in his seat. "Merlin's beard, THAT'S IT!"
His indigo eyes were filled with triumph and Harry could imagine a brightly-lit lightbulb hanging over his messy red hair.
"Harry," his friend eagerly said, jumping to his feet and pacing the length of the living room. "Do you still have that book I gave you for your seventeenth birthday?"
A lightbulb dinged in Harry's head, too.
He rushed to his bedroom with Ron in close pursuit and went straight to his single, pitiful-looking bookcase where Hermione had arranged all his books neatly (there weren't many) only to have them collect dust. His fingers skimmed over the book spines– that were mostly old textbooks he'd retrieved from Privet Drive after the war– until they stopped at the sought-after title.
"Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches by Amadeus Inamorato" he announced triumphantly to Ron and himself, pulling out the unused copy.
"Ah, hello, old friend," Ron greeted the book almost reverently, stroking its cover.
"So how much of it have you tried on Hermione?" Harry asked his friend, raising the book in question.
Ron shrugged. "Not much. A bit last year. After the war. First-date jitters like you. But we're past that dating stage now, you know? I reckon we'll have to take it up to the next level when she gets back." Ron looked nervous but pleased, and Harry found that he was immensely happy for his best friends.
"Thanks, Ron."
"Anytime, mate. You charm the socks off of Ginny tomorrow night." Ron grinned before he closed Harry's bedroom door behind him.
With Ron gone, Harry felt his muscles tense in anticipation as he lifted the cover of the book open. He seemed to register every word with heightened concentration:
Introduction: So You Want to be a Charmer...
A/N: Yay! New fic! It's not exactly connected to my other story "The Potter Inheritance: A New Dawn" but I guess it doesn't matter either way. I've been ITCHING to write a humor/romance fic, especially since I can't really do that in my other story. (I mean, Albus Severus is 11. Who has full-blown romances and hot dates when they're 11??) And I came upon this marvelous present of Ron's again while fact-checking in Deathly Hallows, so here we are!
A few things: I debated over whether or not Hermione should live with them, like maybe share a room with Ron or something. But I like the idea of Hermione as an independent woman who has her own place and doesn't need to depend on her boyfriend. You're also probably wondering why I said Ron didn't know much about romance and relationship in the summary if he's already with Hermione. Just know that Ron will be on a different level with Hermione than Harry is with Ginny and might need the occasional advice from the book. Speaking of which, the name Amadeus Inamorato has roots in the word "love." Thought it would be appropriate!
I really hope you guys like it. It's my first time writing Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione pairings (I used to write Draco/Hermione) so please be kind and review, review, review!