This story is a work of fanfiction. No claims to ownership of the characters or setting herein are being made and no financial gain is sought. My thanks to Daisy-Duck39 for her work in editing this and suggesting certain improvements. Thank you for reading.
Ron Weasley was in the Great Hall with his best mate and the bookworm. He was trying his best to tune her out when she managed to find something worth talking about.
"...and so different countries call the same foods different things. Sometimes the differences are great, like French fries are called pommes frites by the French. Other times, the differences are smaller."
Ron swallowed before speaking. After all, Herms was always going on at him about it and he actually had a question, an important one! "Like what?"
"Well," Hermione paused, casting about for an example then seeing Ron's plate, had an excellent example. "The tomato."
"Huh?" Ron asked eloquently.
"The Americans call it a tomAYto."
"Weird." Ron declared. "Makes you think of something else."
"Like what?" Harry asked, confirming that he needed Ron's genius.
"Like, er, a cross. Between a tomato and a tornado! You can just see it, right? A tornado of tomatoes!" Ron grinned. Showed them, didn't he?
"Yeah?" Harry asked doubtfully.
"Yeah, clear as day, mate!"
Hermione got an odd smile on her face. "You know, Ron, Professor McGonagall is always reminding us of the importance of visualization in spellcasting."
"Uhhuh." Ron replied, looking at his plate and wondering what he wanted to eat first. It was an important question.
"And in Arithmancy, it is also a big thing." Her smile grew. "In fact, spell creation relies as much on visualization as it does on intent, the desire to make your magic produce a result."
"Hmm." Ron chewed on his tomato sandwich, the juice sliding down his throat after delighting his tastebuds.
"Think you could make a new spell, Ron?" Harry grinned at challenging his best mate.
Ron looked over his plate then the nearby platters to no avail. No more tomatoes! This was horrible!
"What was that, mate?"
"I was just wondering if you were up to the challenge, Ron." Harry's grin turned evil. "Unless you can't do it, of course."
"What challenge?" Ron demanded, mouth empty of scraps more by luck than design.
"A tornado of tomatoes, you called it."
Ron's mouth watered. "Man, that'd be wizard!"
"So why don't you do it?" Harry laughed.
"You know what, I will!" Ron told him as he stood up, abandoning the plate containing the leftovers of his thirds. Heads turned at his declaration but Ron didn't mind. He knew it would be easy for someone like him. He didn't notice the bewildered questions about him abandoning food.
Tomatoes had always been his favourite fruit.
Ron had gone to the kitchens for inspiration. After demanding, and devouring, half a dozen tomatoes, whole or sliced, he felt like he had it.
He raised his wand before remembering that the house elves could get hit. The look in Dobby's eye had nothing to do with his decision to practice elsewhere.
He went to the nearest abandoned classroom, raised his wand then twirled it. "Tormado!"
Nothing happened. Same for the second and third times until he recalled Herms' words about desire and seeing your intended result.
The fourth time, he felt a small breeze and saw a rotten half tomato fly out of his wand, as well as feeling a little draw on his magic. He would later blame this for everything that happened after.
With a lot of effort, Ron managed to produce a powerful wind and dozens of rotten tomatoes with his casting. He was thrilled. He had managed to produce a new spell and was sure to impress his friends and the girls. Only, it wasn't what he saw in his mind's eye. No, what he was trying to get was fresh tomatoes!
So, Ron kept at it, mouth watering at the thought of all those free tomatoes for him and him alone.
The next morning, Ron woke up in a room that positively reeked of rotten food.
He opened his eyes. Rotten tomatoes. Everywhere he looked. The floor was covered in them. The walls were spattered with their juices.
Plop!
He looked up. There were even some stuck to the roof, minus the one that had just landed on him.
"Ugh!"
Ron struggled to his feet then trudged out, grabbed his gear and left without a look back or a thought for who would have to clean up after him.
Just after the door closed, he heard cheers from the room he swore had been empty. Still, it put a smile on his face. He was appreciated already and he hadn't even told anyone yet!
Ron used a couple of the shortcuts up to the Gryffindor Tower, coincidentally taking him away from the routes used by most students and thus missing them as they went down to breakfast. Ron hurried through his morning routine though he did include a shower this morning. No one likes the smell of rotten tomatoes while they're busy fixing the hole in their stomach caused by being a growing lad.
He got to the Great Hall not too long after his best mate. "Hey Harry!"
"Ron, where were you?" Herms asked concerned.
"I was doing what you said." Ron replied, waving a fork loaded with mashed potato.
"Ugh. What do you mean? You were gone all night! You didn't get in any trouble, did you?" Herms nagged him.
"Nah, it's fine. I even did that new spell!" Ron boasted then swallowed his mouthful of bangers and mash.
Herms cleaned her face with a scowl before what Ron told her penetrated.
"You did?! How?"
"It was easy, really." Ron grinned.
"Why don't you show us? After breakfast." Harry put in, making Herms back down from nagging more.
Ron smiled. "Okay!" He got back to work with a will, demolishing everything within reach. Everything with one exception. For some reason, he wasn't in the mood for tomatoes this morning.
Ron waited until the other two were sitting down, by the door, which he thought was a little odd, and to his right with a clear view of everything that was about to happen.
"Tormado!" Ron flourished his wand in the spiral pattern that was now ingrained into memory.
Instantly, the wind picked up in front of him, a cyclonic pattern that sucked in the rotten fruit that sprouted from his wand. The mini-tornado wandered about the room while Ron grinned at the shocked (and secretly proud, of course) faces of his friends.
While Ron's attention wandered, the tornado picked up an old desk in its grasp. The desk was pelted with all the tomatoes that Ron's spell had conjured. Between the speed of the projectiles and the old desk being on the edge of collapse already, the desk broke apart, adding splinters of wood to the dangers.
"Wow!" Harry gasped.
Ron's control broke and the whole thing collapsed. Ron didn't pay it any mind once the crash ended.
"That's amazing!" Harry added. "Just think of what you could do with that spell."
"...Yes, yes, I see what you mean, Harry. You don't think it's too much?" Herms added, a little worried.
"No, it'll be fine." Harry assured her, saving Ron the bother.
Ron happily demonstrated his new spell to everyone who asked, even to those who hadn't asked yet. He was confused when the teachers weren't happy with his academic excellence. Couldn't they see it? Ron shrugged. Just more proof that Herms was the brightest witch of the age, oh, and Harry, too.
They were the only ones to see the real brilliance of it.
Ron was sure somehow that Fred and George would love it, too, and resolved to surprise them with it in their shop.
Harry and Herms had already asked Ron to teach them his awesome creation. Naturally, with Ron teaching them, they had picked it up quickly.
Unfortunately, that barmy old wizard had then banned the use of the spell within Hogwarts, saying that the house elves were getting overworked and some of them had collapsed where they fell, smiles on their faces. Couldn't be that bad, though, could it? He said they were smiling!
Ron did give up casting it, though. When points docked failed to stop him, the threat of being restricted to seconds worked.
Downright evil, that was!
Still, he had pretty much forgotten about his new spell a month after the affair started. He got back to his usual routine, got on with trying to find a suitably amazing girlfriend and while doing that, trying to get Herms in the sack while he waited. He kept himself occupied with Lav to take the pressure off. He was just managing to get somewhere with Herms thanks to that book when the slimy Slytherins started distracting him.
Just in time for the end of year crisis to heat up. Ron hated it but it was the price you paid when you were as good as him and Harry.
That slimy bastard Draco was up to something, just as Ron had always said, and after Harry got over that studying bug, I mean, Potions? Harry and him were just as good mates as ever.
That's when the Death Eaters broke into the castle using the Vanishing Cabinet.
And that's when Herms proved once and for all that she was completely unworthy to be his practice girlfriend.
She and Harry used his spell on the Death Eaters!
Worse, they managed to make the winds faster and more destructive than he ever had. The rotten tomatoes were even more rotten than before, hitting Death Eaters in their eyes and ears, blinding and deafening them.
The projectiles smashed even the strongest magical shields the enemy produced and physical shields buckled and broke before joining the tomatoes in the tornadoes the pair directed with abandon.
Ron never knew how much of the red stuff left behind after the battle was from the tomatoes and how much was from the Death Eaters' blood.
When the reporters asked their questions of Harry and Herms, the pair did credit Ron's invention. They had managed to use the spell to devastate the Death Eaters and make You-Know-Who beg for death while Ron was seeing his dinner for the second time.
He had to admit it wasn't all bad. The Order of Merlin Third Class came with a nice bit of money each year and his face in the paper. Ron even got to put his hands up a few witches' robes.
No matter what, however, Ron would never eat another tomato in his life.