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

9 / Best-Laid Plans

It was very quiet at dinner, or perhaps it was just Harry. Ron was being huffy and giving him the silent treatment over the Eloise Midgen incident, and Hermione was being huffy and giving him the silent treatment because he refused to listen to any more permutations of the Brilliant Plan. Ron and Hermione were being huffy with one another because she refused to divulge anything to him about the wand conversation, or why they had been discussing his murder in the girl's dormitories this morning. Everyone else kept giving them odd looks down the table, except for the Weasley twins, who congratulated them all loudly on giving Professor McGonagall another ulcer. Colin Creevey was wearing a large spotty onion around his neck and glanced at Hermione from time to time in furious paranoia. At the Hufflepuff table, Justin Finch-Fletchy looked very gray in the face, and occasionally had to put his head between his knees. Each time he did, Susan Bones would pat him on the back and glare at Ernie Macmillan, who never looked up from his plate. Across the room, Malfoy was sitting between Crabbe and Goyle, glowering and shifting around in his chair quite a bit.

Thus, Harry, who wasn't feeling particularly huffy, was left to attempt civil conversation all on his own. "So," he said brightly, "I hear it's supposed to clear up soon."

Ron grunted.

Hermione sniffed.

"What do you think of Ravenclaw's new Beaters?"

Ron took a drink.

Hermione harumphed.

"I'm going to hitch-hike naked to Sweden."

"Mmm," said Ron.

Hermione chewed on a carrot..

Harry sighed.

It would have all been a lot easier, he thought, if they'd just been honest from the beginning. They could have just walked up to Ron, taken him aside, and said "Ron, Crabbe and Goyle think that Malfoy has gone mad and they want to beat you up, and Malfoy possibly wants to kill you." Yes, it would've sounded ludicrous, but at least it would all be out in the open. Now he sincerely doubted that Ron would believe a word that came out of either of their mouths. "We're not trying to kill you, you know," he told Ron again, just to make sure he hadn't forgotten.

Ron glowered.

They finished their dinners in stony silence, except for a brief fracas featuring Trevor the toad, some Fillibuster fireworks, and the highly startling image of Neville Longbottom putting Lee Jordan in a headlock. Once everyone had been disentangled and all amphibians deemed uninjured, Ron drank the last of his pumpkin juice and stalked out of the Great Hall. Hermione also got up to leave, and Harry decided to try burying the hatchet on a one-on-one basis. "Hermione, please talk to me."

She sniffed.

"Herm, please, I'm sorry about the Eloise Midgen thing."

She looked over to the side and turned up her nose. "Goodness, I wonder what that funny buzzing noise is."

"Come on, Hermione!"

"I can't hear a word..."

"Hermione, look, I really am interested in the Brilliant Plan, okay?"

She shut her eyes and jammed her fingers in her ears. "I can't hear anything! The self-stirring cauldron was invented by Sophia St. Stanislaus! The molecular weight of sodium is twenty-three grams per mole!"

"Will you just listen?"

"Kassel is located in Hessen!"

"Hermione!"

"The Diricawl is also known as the dodo!"

Harry took a deep breath. "Hermione, if you don't start talking to me, I'll tell Crabbe and Goyle that they may beat up Ron."

She whirled and looked at him, scandalized, with her fingers still her ears. "You wouldn't."

"I would."

"Would not."

"Would too."

"Not."

"Too."

"Do it and I'll kidnap your owl."

"I'll tell Professor McGonagall on you."

"I won't check your Charms homework."

"I'll turn Crookshanks over to the Weasley twins."

"I'll mutilate your broomstick."

"I'll tell Ernie Macmillan that he's absolutely correct."

She froze in mid-stride, eyes bugging out.

"I'm not kidding, Hermione, I'll tell him—oof!" Hermione poked him savagely in the ribs, then pointed across the entrance hall, which they had just entered. Ron was standing at the foot of the marble staircase leading up to their dormitory, talking with Draco Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle were hanging back, looking confused and uncomfortable, but the moment they saw Harry and Hermione, they launched into a furious and complex pantomime that seemed to involve eating spaghetti, tickling a snake, and wantonly calling into existance a bowl of doomed pentunias.

Before Harry could stop her, Hermione charged forward, resembling nothing so much as a saber-toothed tiger. He scrambled to catch up with her, before anything dangerous occurred. As they drew nearer, Ron's and Malfoy's voices became distinct.

"...isn't my fault, you...you twat!"

"You're getting you anatomy scrambled."

"Oh, go to hell."

"Why? I've got you here..."

"Watch it, Malfoy!"

Suddenly Malfoy spotted them around Ron's shoulder, and his face (which had been uncharacteristically tense) broke into a lazy sneer. "And now, the cavalry arrives. Come to save your pet weasel from the big bad Slytherins?"

Hermione grabbed Malfoy by the front of the robes; the other boys stiffened and froze. "Listen to me, Malfoy," she said sweetly. "If you so much as lay a finger on R—any of my friends, because that's why I'm doing this, he's a friend, if you so much as breath at him wrong, I will cast the Castrarus Curse on you, and your friends, and the rest of your House, and then I will kick you so hard you will have to open your mouth to have a pee." She smiled and let go.

Malfoy, looking significantly alarmed, stepped away quickly. "That's pleasant to know, Granger, thank you for that information," he said shakily. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do that linger in your stultifying company." He turned to leave, and bumped hard into Ron as he did so; Harry couldn't tell whether it was deliberate. Ron reacted instantly, shoving Malfoy hard, so that he landed square on his backside. Malfoy's eyes bugged out of his head when he hit, and he made a small a small, squeaky noise before climbing stiffly up, glaring at Ron, and marching off towards the dungeons with a very curious posture. Ron glared at him and stormed up the stairs, leaving the rest of them to stand around, staring awkwardly. No one seemed to want to stand very close to Hermione.

She scowled after Malfoy, then turned to the two Slytherins. "What were they saying before we came in? And why is Malfoy walking like he's got a screwdriver down back the of his pants?"

Crabbe shrugged. "Draco said that they needed to talk, and that Weasley needs to be more careful, and Weasley said he didn't know what Draco was talking about, and Draco said that he knew damn well what he was talking about, and then he called us stupid, and told Weasley that he was going to eat him alive for what he did to him."

"What's a screwdriver?" Goyle asked.

Hermione kneaded her temples. "See, Harry, I told you that Malfoy was insane. He's got some kind of weird vendetta now, and he's after Ron, I told you...what's that?"

Harry noticed a tightly folded piece of parchment on the stone floor, and picked up. Opening it, he saw unfamiliar, curly handwriting:

Weasley:

Meet me in the empty classroom at the bottom of Trelawney's tower after your Astronomy class. You'll get what's coming to you.

Hermione, reading over his shoulder, gasped. "Harry...that's Malfoy's writing!"

"You think they're going to duel?" Harry asked uncertainly.

"Of course not."

"Really?"

"I think Malfoy's going to ambush him and torture him to death." She looked at Crabbe and Goyle, who were watching with mild interest, and addressed them in a manner that reminded Harry strongly of his nursery school teacher. "Listen, you two. Draco's gone mad. We need you to help us stop him...er, stop him getting expelled." Crabbe nodded gravely at this. "Meet us down here, at one o'clock in the morning. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Crabbe said earnestly. "We've got watches."

Goyle showed them his.

"Good," Hermione said. "Now, meet us here at one o'clock in the morning. We will go and stop Draco getting himself expelled. What time?"

"One o'clock."

"Where at?"

"Here."

"Good." By standing up on her tip-toes, Hermione managed to pat them both on the head. They grinned at her. Harry began to bang his head against the wall.

A/N 2: The phrase "wantonly calling into existance a bowl of doomed petunias" is property of Douglas Adam. It is also a concept that does not leap easily to the eye.

Don't worry about Harry hitch-hiking to Sweden, either; Annchen will be there to take care of him. Right, Annchen?