Malfoy,
Dinner my house tonight, for a change. Pasta ok?
Harry
Potter,
Fine.
Malfoy
"Oh, gods, Ron, you should've seen his face!" Harry howled again, days later, just thinking back on it. Poor chap—and poor him as well, thinking what he'd been thinking, focused on the heavy duelling or the hand-to-hand combat or something equally painful and very oppositional, and not at all dwelling on building a partnership. And all blithely unaware the Ministry Auror Reorientation Programme had to have been designed by what must've been a boatload of certifiable, hand-holding, tie-dyed tree-huggy lunatics. "It was a bloody scream, mate. I almost died, trying not to laugh when he realized it was only thumbs. Comical!"
"What, Malfoy's?" Ron asked blandly. "Yes…actually. Prob'ly was." He glanced off, ginger brows beetling. "But, Harry…that's rather sad for him, don't you know? Feel bad, now. You likely shouldn't be laughing. Not so," he humped a careful shoulder, "on, no." He tsked, disapprovingly. "I wouldn't have known, either."
"No?"
"No." Ron drank down his pint, scowling at it all the while. "Decidedly not."
"Er, alright, sorry….though I wasn't really, not at him. More his face; there's a difference...Ah, er, come to think?" Harry tapped his best mate on the shoulder peremptorily. "D'you know, Ron?"
"Hmm?"
"Now I'm actually really very curious. This programme, was our Luna ever on the Committee, mate? 'Cause that was just right up her alleyway, all of it. I can practically see her fine hand at work, having real Wizards play about with real swords and real thumbs and hardly any magic involved. To see what they'd do...how they'd manage? Or maybe your Dad's in on it, Ron. This could be him, too. Mad for Muggles, the lot of them."
"Oh, now, Harry." Ron scowled good-naturedly, flapping his hands as he waited for Tom to notice they were empty of a potable beverage. "That's not so nice of you, either. Don't go comparing my dad with Luna, alright? They're nothing alike. Dad's all about the mechanics, not the 'deep inner meanings'." His voice went high and breathy with the last bit and he made air quotes, and Harry had to chuckle. He adored Luna but she was a bloody piece of work and no lie.
"Oops, again…sorry. Was just thinking, Ron."
"Meh." Ron made short work of his second pint, Tom having kindly conjured it. "Okay, then." He nodded at Harry, upper lip foamy, and wrinkled his nose up above his bubbly moustache, clearly debating. "No worries…Besides, it wasn't either of them, Harry. Know that for a fact."
"Yes?" Harry perked up. "Who, then?"
"Was my Pansy, actually. Thought it would work out, she did, mixing us all up like this, Pure and Half and so on, and I've got to admit, mate—she's spot on."
"Wha—what?" Harry nearly tumbled off his stool. "Your Parkinson did this?"
Ron grinned with patent pleasure at Harry's expression..
"Yep. Think so, mate. 'Course, Hermione had to jump in too, shove in her two sickles as the resident expert, but yeah. Slytherin thinking, Harry," Ron nodded over the rim of his glass, blue eyes half-lidded."Deep shit, isn't it? There's the ticket. By the way, did you and Malfoy ever come up with something to talk about?"
"Hmm?" Harry started from his visible abstraction; Parkinson being the one responsible for thumb-wrestling had thrown him for a loop of major proportion. "Oh. Oh, yes, actually. Loads."
"Like what?"
"Um, well." Harry began to tick items off on his fingertips. "Muggle fencing, for one. He's been telling me all about it, the history. Gives me books and such. Goblins, for another. Fascinating species, almost as weird as house elves and I never knew, fancy! Ah…backgammon." He grinned happily. "Turns out we both play backgammon, what about that, and—"
"Fancy," Ron grinned, eyes narrowing in amusement. "That."
"But," Harry added triumphantly, "not Quidditch!"
