A/N: Alright, here's the long awaited chapter 9! (really chapter 8, but I've got that little author's note tucked in there, so the chapter bar registers it as chapter 9…..) I've developed the plot some more….. DUN DUN DUN. Hope you like it, because I recently reread DS, and there were some really obvious loose ends that did NOT get tied together, so that's kind of what this chapter is.
Hope you like it!
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Hermione glanced at Ron across the table. He was busy. Eating, of course. His face was currently being smashed repeatedly with the rapidly disappearing end of a corned beef sandwich.
"Ron." Hermione said dryly.
No response.
"Ron."
A grunt. Hermione waited a minute, but then decided that the grunt was directed towards the meat pie currently on his plate.
"RON." She said firmly. He looked up, an expression of surprise on his face.
"What? There's no need to yell. I'm right here." Hermione just rolled her eyes and set her hands firmly on the table on either side of her clean plate.
"Where's Harry?"
Ron looked around, as if just now realizing that Harry was not, in fact, with them.
"Oh yeah….he said he had to go somewhere. For something. I dunno, really. He told me he'd see us at dinner…" Ron's voice trailed off as he looked around the Great Hall, and all the dinner food around them. "But he's not here." His voice had a note of surprise in it.
Hermione refrained from bashing her head repeatedly against the hard, unrelenting surface of the table top. No need to get a bruise over Ron's everyday idiocy. If she did that, her face would be permanently purple.
"No, Ron, he's not here. Do you have any idea where he is? Because he's been acting really strange lately." Hermione glanced up and down the Gryffindor table, and leaned in close to Ron. "Who is it that he's meeting? If it's a girl, just let me know, and I won't worry about it. I know all about the 'bro code' nonsense, but all you have to do is tell me that's what this is. Because if it's not, then I have a reason to be worried." Hermione leaned back, satisfied that she hadn't broken the 'bro code' rules of conduct.
Ron gave her a blank stare before bursting out in laughter.
Hermione looked at him, her satisfied look turning into one of annoyance.
"What?" She asked, miffed. "I was perfectly tactful about it!"
"It's not that…" Ron managed to let out in between barks of laughter. "It's just the fact that you think that Harry and I would keep the 'bro code' "nonsense", as you call it, from YOU. You, of all people." Ron started to laugh harder, finding new depth to the joke.
"And what's that supposed to mean, Ronald? Are you trying to say that you don't consider me a girl, so it's not worth it to keep the sordid details of your 'guy life' from me, because I don't really count? Is that it?" Her face was turning pink with exertion.
"Of course not, Hermione. Don't be silly." He stopped laughing, his blue eyes shockingly serious. "You're the smartest witch of your age. The idea that Harry and I, the two people you're with ALL DAY, could keep an entire 'code' secret from you…it's laughable."
Hermione thought about it, and started to howl with laughter. Catching the humor again, Ron joined her.
The rest of the Gryffindor table looked at the pair laughing hysterically in the middle of the Great Hall, and smiled.
The two had finally cracked. All the stress of being best friends with the Golden Boy, Saviour of the Wizarding World, and the two had finally lost it.
It was about time.
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Sitting down in a comfy red patterned armchair in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione motioned to Ron. Ron came over from the base of the guy's dormitory and sat next to her in the opposite chair.
"Is Harry up there?"
"No. I haven't seen him since classes let out."
Hermione frowned.
"I'm worried about him, Ron. Are you sure he doesn't have a girl hiding away?"
Ron gave her a weird look.
"What?" She asked, surprised.
"Hermione….Harry doesn't…swing that way." Hermione blushed. Ron blushed and looked down.
"Really?" She asked, pretending to be shocked. In reality, she had known for a while now, but since the two had avoided telling her, she had had to fish the information out of Ron.
"Yeah…"
"Well then. Is he shacked up with a boy somewhere, then?" Ron's face turned putrid yellow.
"Blimey, Hermione! I don't know! Just because Harry's gay doesn't mean I am. I told him when I found out that I didn't want to know anything about anything." Ron hurriedly rolled his shoulders, as if throwing off the 'gay vibes' that would have settled on him had he known all the sordid details about Harry's homosexual escapades.
"Well, who does he go to when he needs to talk to someone about it?" Hermione asked.
"Hermione!" Ron asked, affronted. "Just because he's gay does NOT mean he's a girl!"
"No need to get touchy, Ronald. From all this animosity, one could conclude that you yourself were in fact, gay." Ron's face grew a nasty shade of red-orange.
"Don't even go there, Hermione. It's not even funny." Hermione laughed. They settled into silence for a minute, Ron silently huffing in his chair. Seamus and Dean walked by, holding hands and making moon eyes at each other as they made their way up the boys' dormitory stairs.
Ron's eyes followed them absentmindedly, until all the sudden he let out a gasp.
"Hermione!" He said excitedly.
"What?" She asked, puzzled.
"Remember that Slytherin bondage party that we had a while ago?"
"Yeah…" She said.
"Well, the morning after that, Harry had all these hickeys down his chest, and he said something to Seamus about them. Seamus laughed. When I asked him about it, he shrugged me off, saying something about Harry's privacy."
Hermione's eyes flickered to the stairs.
"So Harry DOES have a secret lover. And he met him at the bondage party?"
Ron nodded, not quite liking the sudden gleam in her eyes.
"Mmmm. And Seamus knows something about it. " Ron nodded again. Hermione broke out into a smirk. "Ronald."
"Yeah?"
"I think it's time we had a little talk with Seamus."
Ron paled.
"Can we wait till after Seamus comes back from the dormitory with Dean?"
Hermione pouted. "I suppose so…." She said dejectedly. She bent her head and looked up at Ron with a sexy, disconcertingly non-Hermione face. "But I've always wanted to see them in action."
Ron's ears reddened.
