Ritual Disclaimer: This belongs to Joanne Katherine Rowling, otherwise known as Supreme Author of All, who is my personal close friend (I'm not lying, really I'm not!).
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus belongs to John Gray, and may G-d have mercy on his soul.
Ritual Warning: As I said in the summary, this is SLASH. Two boys who are 'special friends' in a non- platonic way. All homophobics, whether they realize it or not shall run away. Shoo! But if you must flame, please do it w/o cursing me, questioning my sexuality, or writing 'U' and 'R' instead of 'you' and 'are'. Thanks
As-Close-to-Ritualistic-as-I-Can-Get-Before-Jinxing-My-Good-Luck Congratulations: To my dear friend Michael who I've known for twelve years who has finally read all four books and was thoroughly put out when I told him the fifth book wasn't coming out for another year
Hermione was a tad confused. For the past week or so, Harry had been in a much better mood than he had all year. He had posed for pictures with Colin Creevey. He had whistled as Snape removed points when he sneezed. He had even gone along with Rita Skeeter's frequent requests for an interview (apparently her little vacation with Hermione hadn't quite curbed her appetite for yellow journalism, although she had developed an amusing little twitch which manifested itself whenever she saw either a jar, or else a set of rather large teeth). Harry's behavior, while pleasing was a little off in Hermione's opinion. It was the first time in all their days at Hogwarts that Voldemort seemed to be taking some time off, but did that really account for Harry's frantic happiness?
Another part of the puzzle was that every night at exactly nine-thirty-seven, Harry would get up from whatever it was he was doing, go upstairs, return with his invisibility cloak under one arm, and, when he thought no one was looking, leave the common room, humming happily all the way. Five minutes later, Ron would look around and surreptitiously (at least that's what he thought) also leave the room, going in the same direction as Harry had.
Hermione thought about this little enigma very carefully. She observed it from every angle. She spent hours in the library looking up books with titles like, Understanding Male Behavior, and one very strange book called, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, which had sounded rather magical and interesting, but had in fact been slightly annoying. She even drew complicated diagrams to help her in the process. However, no matter how many times she looked at it, she kept on coming back to the same conclusion. Harry and Ron were best friends the way 'Snuffles' and Proffesor Lupin were.
Hermione was crushed. Completely distraught. What was she to do? Her Ron, her only love, was . . . gay? It hadn't mattered to her so much when it was Harry, after all Harry fit the stereotype. Slender, sensitive, polite, and neat, the boy had even been immune to the charms of Fleur, and she was a quarter veela for G-d's sake! But Ron? Ron had been lusting after anything in a skirt for the past two years. At least she thought he had. It certainly seemed like he had. Perhaps it had all been a cover. But that didn't make sense, after all, Ron was about as subtle as a brick wall.
So all in all, Hermione was thoroughly confused.
There's only one thing to do, she told herself, I'll have to start following them.
The next night, Harry was rather annoyed to find himself followed by not only Ron, but Hermione as well, and she was infinitely harder to shake off. He quickly rounded a corner, and half-ran down the hall, wondering, not for the first time, how they were able to track him in his previously impenatrable Cloak. Just he was narrowly avoiding a certain suit of armor that sang loudly and quite off-key whenever it 'saw' anything resembling anything like an audience, he suddenly found himself rather closer to the ground than he had been earlier, and looking directly up at a bemused Dumbledore.
"Hello Mr. Potter," he said, reaching down to help Harry up off the ground, "as I told you in your first year, it's strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you."
"Er – yes – sorry sir."
"Well, where are you off too in such a hurry tonight?"
"Um . . . uh . . . to . . ." Harry stammered desperately, there was no way he could tell the Headmaster that he was going to go make out with Draco Malfoy, (although the thought of Dumbledore's reaction was mildly amusing), but lying to Dumbledore was like lying to a wide-eyed two-year-old. It was just despicable.
Dumbledore chuckled. "Well Mr. Potter, I will have to advise you to remember to keep your little escapades to a bare minimum. If you run back to your tower now, I will pretend this never happened."
Harry winced as he thought of Draco sitting all alone in that empty common room, slowly growing angrier and angrier and . . . "Er . . . Headmaster, see, I'm supposed too – "
Dumbledore interrupted him, eyes twinkling, "Oh, I just remembered, I need to have a talk with Mr. Malfoy about the upcoming Easter vacation. I don't suppose you'd want him to know you were here, would you?"
Harry choked. Dumbledore couldn't possibly know anything . . . could he? He felt a hand pounding his back, and looked up to see Dumbledore grinning down at him.
"I didn't think so. Well, I'm off! Ta-ta!"
And the Headmaster of the greatest wizarding school in European history skipped out of sight, singing 'I'm a little teapot' – with the hand gestures.
* * *
A week later, Ron looked at Harry suspiciously. Trailing the other boy had not been working out the way he'd hoped. Apparently it was quite hard to track an invisible boy, no matter how many times you've bribed Peeves into helping you. Also, Hermione had been giving him odd looks for a while now, and once when he and Harry had been doing homework in the library and she'd walked in on them, she blushed, apologized for interrupting, and ran out hastily. This was not at all like the Hermione he knew and loved. Girls, he thought, shaking his head.
Harry stood up, stretched, and set down his quill. "Wanna go for a walk?" he asked, yawning, "I'm getting tired of thinking up new ways to get disemboweled."
Ron gave him a skeptical look. C'mon Harry, how stupid do you think I am? Sure at first it's an innocent walk, but before I know it you'll be all over me like butter on bread. He snickered to himself.
Harry stared down at Ron. The redhead had been acting strangely for a while now, but he seemed to have gone from simple weirdness to out and out insanity. After his perfectly sane and simple offer, Ron had suddenly started giggling to himself like a maniac. Harry took a slow step backwards, then another. He thought it had been a perfectly ingenious concept. He and Ron would go for a walk. He would say, quite nicely, that while they would always have something special, their friendship would never be anything other than platonic. Ron would weep uncontrollably, and Harry would comfort him, reminding him of Hermione's affections. Ron would then realize that he was perfectly straight, and had been swayed by Harry's infectious charm, magnificent good looks, and glorious flying skills. Ron would of course be perfectly accepting of Harry's relationship with Draco, and Voldemort, swayed by Harry's sincerity and kindness toward his fellow man would surrender himself to the Dementor's Kiss, while
Draco, appeared, dressed in nothing but a red and gold thong . . .
Madam Pince shook her head, and walked over to the two boys, both lost in their fantasy worlds. Sighing, she grabbed Harry by the shoulders and shook him ferociously, then she did the same to Ron.
"Listen you two!" she shouted as they wandered around, looking dazed and confused, "You've got to stop doing that! That's the third time this week!"
"Sorry Madam Pince," they murmered apologetically, looking down at their shoes.
"Well don't let it happen again," she said sternly and stalked away.
Harry and Ron looked at each other, blushed, and decided to maybe forgo the walk for another time.
* * *
Draco was incredibly, horribly bored. There was absolutely nothing to do. He was so bored that he decided to make a list of options, to ease his lethargy. Rummaging through his trunk, he tossed aside various knick–knacks (hand-cuffs, a leather studded whip, a red and gold thong . . . how odd, he thought, I don't remember buying that particular article of clothing in Hogsmeade). Finally he found a scrap of parchment and his favorite quill and settled down to write his list.
- Make Crabbe and Goyle get into a fight
- Tease Pansy
- See if Harry is interested in trying on that new thong I found
- Go to the library and read that book about famous Slytherins and their 'domestic partners'
- Write a letter to Father
Draco dipped his quill into his inkwell, and wrote the cons next to each article on the parchment.
- Last time Crabbe and Goyle got into a wrestling match they ended up losing most of their clothing and no one wants to see that. Then they disappeared into the dorm room, and didn't come out until dinner. wants to see that. Then they disappeared into the dorm room, and didn't come out until dinner. Yuck.
- Whenever I tease Pansy, she thinks I'm flirting
- If he's not with Granger and the Weasel
- I think Goyle already checked it out
- Sure – I can just see how that would go:
Dear Father,
So you wanted to hear my news? Let's see, do you remember Harry Potter? You know the boy you're sworn to capture and bring to the Dark Lord? Yeah, well anyway, the other day, as we were making out . . .
Draco shuddered as he imagined his father's reaction. No, that was not a good idea. Not a good idea at all. Sighing a little, he got up to see what Harry was doing. Maybe he could convince the other boy to where the thong, and maybe even the handcuffs too . . .
Pansy watched suspiciously as Draco left the common room, one hand in his pocket, which was jingling oddly. Lately the blond had been leaving at odd times of the night, and returning with a heart-stopping smile on his face as opposed to his customary smirk. This could mean one thing, and one thing only: her Draco, her sweet, innocent Draco was cheating on her! This had to be stopped. But how . . . ?
A/N: Yay! The Dell computer guy has a new commercial! *sigh* okay, I'm done. Anyway, ffn.net is STILL down, so if this takes a while, blame xing, not me. Also, my friend and beta-reader, Icefox (who currently has a WIP) helped me figure out an ending, so as of now, this story actually has a purpose! Hurray! Oh, and my 'wonderful' (yeah, sure) father decided to review all my stories under MY pen name, so no, I'm not promoting my own work, it's the man from whom I unfortunately got half my DNA.
