Title: Strange Bedfellows: A Comedy of Assumptions
Author: Mad Maudlin
Email: mekamorph@yahoo.com
Catergory: Humor, and a little romance
Keywords: Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, slash, 5th year
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: Teensy ones for Book Four, microscopic one for Book Two
Summary: Murder, mayhem, madness and Malfoy! Harry and Hermione face down an unexpected conspiracy, a possible nefarious plot, wild rumors and much, much worse to save their best friend from a terrible fate...right?

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

In other words, they're not mine; talk to the nice Scottish lady.

A/N: WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! This fic contains SLASH (male-on-male) SITUATIONS! Boys kiss boys! Boys do a lot more than kiss boys! It's SLASH! If this is the sort of thing that might offend you, do not read any further! I have a right to speak freely, but you have a right not to listen. So exercise your "Back" button! Bill put 'em there for something...

Strange Bedfellows:

A Comedy of Assumptions

by Mad Maudlin

8 / Explaining It

Harry glared at Madame Pomfrey as she prodded his head again with her wand. She was getting entirely too worked up over things. "I really am fine," he said again. "It doesn't hurt."

"And it's the size of a goose egg," she said through pursed lips. "What did you get hit with this time, a Bludger?"

"A table."

Her eyes bugged out.

"Well, I was hitting it," Harry amended. "But that's sort of the same thing, right?" Madame Pomfrey slowly shook her head and prodded his head again. That time, it hurt. "Yeow!"

"If you would hold still and let me shrink it..." She prodded it again. That time, it really hurt. "There. All done."

Harry hopped off the bed immediately and ran across the ward to where Hermione lay, recovering from the sting of the Venomous Tentacula. Ron was sitting up next to her, looking rather more confused than normal. "Is she awake yet?" Harry asked him.

"Yes," Hermione said sharply, "yes, I am, thank you ever so much for noticing, Harry."

"Sorry," he said, taking a seat next to Ron.

Hermione sighed. "I can't believe I let myself do something so stupid as climb right into a teething Venomous Tentacula," she moaned.

"Why," Ron asked, "were you anywhere near the Venomous Tentacula?"

"Oh, I overheard Ernie Macmillan running his mouth off, and I...well, he was saying nonsense, of course, but..."

"But he called you a hermaphrodite?" Ron prompted.

"Yes." She glared at the opposite wall. "I can't believe he actually thinks that."

"But what the hell would give him that idea?"

Harry groaned. "I think I know. I think...er, I think somebody overheard something out of context and was, er, passing it around."

She turned her glare on him. "And what could anyone have possibly heard to cause them to assume I'm a hermaphrodite?"

"Remember what we were talking about right before lunch?"

"We were talking about wands." Ron coughed loudly. "Oh, don't you start, too!"

Ron blinked rapidly. "You were talking about wands? That you cast spells with?"

"Of course, what other sort of wand is there that I would I be talking about?" She glanced between the two incredulous boys. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Ron suddenly looked up at the ceiling and began to loudly hum "Rule Britannia." Harry shoved him hard and hissed, "I'm not going to explain it to her!" Ron just hummed louder.

"What," Hermione said icily, "aren't you going to explain to me?"

Harry took a deep breath, clamped his hands over Ron's mouth (so he wouldn't have to say this twice) and told her.

Hermione turned very pink. "Oh my."

"Yes." Harry sat back. He felt that he was turning very pink, just from having said it. Ron was still humming. "I reckon that's what Colin was on about to begin with. And Ernie must've reasoned..."

"Ernie doesn't have a brain to reason with. Ron, will you stop humming?!"

He jumped and looked at the floor. "Sorry."

Hermione sighed. "This is embarrassing. And I suppose Macmillan's going to spread it all over the school now, that the three of us are all hormone-crazed perverts, and Harry's somehow involved with Draco Malfoy..."

"What?!" both boys yelped in unison.

She nodded grimly. "And he thinks we're all in league with each other to kill Ron."

Ron looked livid. "And he says Harry's with Malfoy, does he?"

"Yes, I just said that..."

"Excuse me," Harry said, feeling once again that the situation was spiraling out of his control, "but what exactly is the problem?"

Both of the others stared at him blankly.

"I mean," he pressed onward, "okay, people are spreading rumors. That's nothing unusual, not for us, right? As long as we don't do anything to encourage them," he said, with a significant look at Hermione, "they'll all blow over eventually. Right?"

"I guess..." Ron said doubtfully.

"Exactly. So let's just ignore them. Ernie and Lavender will get bored with it sooner or later, and we can always punch Colin in the head and explain to him on our own time. This time next month half the school won't even remember it."

He tried to sound confident and persuasive, but he wasn't certain that it had worked; Ron just looked uncertain, and Hermione seemed ready for a full-scale snit on the level of the Crookshanks Incident. Luckily Madame Pomfrey bustled in and took her temperature just then, or she might've gotten a chance to say something.

"Well, it looks like the anti-venom is working...I suppose you can go. Just don't overwork yourself, and get plenty of sleep."

"Can't," Ron muttered, "we've got Astronomy with Ravenclaw at eleven." Madame Pomfrey gave him a withering look, as if she were itching to take his temperature, too, but with something a lot less safe than a thermometer, and from the other end. Ron blanched. "Well, I'll just go down to dinner, then, shall I?"

"I think I will, too," Harry said loudly when it seemed that Hermione was trying to catch his eye. He didn't want to hear any more lectures about Ron's safety or the Brilliant Plan. She scowled darkly as they left.

He and Ron took their time walking from the hospital wing, since dinner was still some time off. Harry cast about for some interesting topic of conversation that didn't involve Hermione's madness, or Ernie's ignorance, or wands. He had nearly worked out something interesting to say about Oliver Wood and the Puddlemere United team when Ron hesitated at the bottom of a staircase. "Harry?"

"Yes?"

"You know how Ernie's apparently saying that you're sleeping with Malfoy?"

"What about it?"

"You aren't, are you?"

Harry could only gape at him. Ron's face was bright scarlet, and he was staring straight ahead. The harder Harry tried to frame a reply, the more difficult it became to work his jaw. They stood there for several minutes before Ron looked at him and frowned, eyes widening, "Are you?"

"No!" was what Harry tried to say, although by the time it had gotten from his brain to his mouth it sounded more like "Nyaoouh!" He shook his head and tried again. "No! Absolutely not! I mean...I mean...Ron, it's Malfoy. Even if I were gay, I wouldn't go near him."

"Okay then," Ron said, but he didn't seem okay.

Harry goggled. "Ron, I swear! Look, do you need me to prove it?"

"I don't need you to prove anything," he said, but his heart wasn't in it.

"I can't believe I'm having this conversation! Ron, I hate Malfoy and I'm straight, what more do you need to know?"

"You were just...just sort of slow to deny it, that's all."

"I was slow because you asked out of the clear blue sky!"

"Well, excuse me for being interested in your life!"

"I'm not angry that you asked!"

"Then why are you shouting at me?"

"I'm not shouting!" Harry took a deep breath, then continued in a less strident voice. "Ron, please, let's not do this again. I promise you that I wouldn't do anything with Malfoy if he were the last life-form on Earth. I've never even considered it."

He looked doubtful. "You sure?"

Harry clenched his fists and looked around. There, walking down the hall with two of her friends, was Eloise Midgen. He steeled himself for what he was about to do, then poked Ron sharply in the arm. "Watch this. I'll prove it to you."

He walked straight up to the three Hufflepuffs, ignoring Ron's uneasy questions. "Excuse me, Eloise?" he said, as politely as he could.

She turned and looked at him, pushing her glasses up her nose. "Erm...yes?"

"Could I, er, have a moment of your time?"

She looked around. "All right..."

Before she could move, or he could lose his nerve, Harry leaned in and gave her what he considered a relatively chaste peck on the side of the mouth. Their glasses clicked together awkwardly. Eloise shrieked and leapt backwards, and he saw something black moving down towards his head very quickly for a split second before everything exploded in stars.

The next thing he knew, he was staring at the ceiling. There was a mildew stain up there shaped like a deformed rabbit. There were people shouting very close by, something about harrassment and madness and bribery. "See, Ron?" Harry said, trying to sit up, "I told you I wasn't gay."

There was more shrieking, and he saw something large, black and foot-shaped hover precariously close to his face for a moment. It occurred to him that he wasn't wearing his glasses. He rolled over and began to grope for them while more people shouted. Suddenly he was hauled up by the back of his robes and carried forward by something large, irritable, and mostly red. "What's this?" he muttered.

"Shut up, Harry," Ron growled. "We're going back to the hospital wing."

"What about my glasses?"

"I've got your bloody glasses." He pushed Harry up a tightly winding staircase, which he found difficult enough to navigate when his head wasn't pounding so hard. "God, Midgen's a terror. She wanted to go to Professor Dumbledore and get you expelled for attempted rape, you know that?"

"I told you I wasn't gay," he said.

"Whatever," Ron sighed.

Harry rubbed his head. "What'd she hit me with, anyway?"

"Her bookbag."

"That was a bookbag?"

"Swung overhand. If you ask me, you should be complaining about her." Ron shook his head. "By the way, you owe me thirty Galleons."

"What for?"

"'Cause I owe it to Eloise."