Title: Is it Okay to Feel This Way?

Author: Zipporah

Genre: Humor/Parody/Romance WARNINGS: Contains EXCESSIVE SLASH! By excessive, I mean EXCESSIVE. By SLASH, I mean boys romantically involved with boys and girls romantically involved with girls. You are warned. Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine. I am using them without the knowledge or consent of their owners. I am making no money. Author's notes: Thank you Corpruga, for support and assistance. Thank you in advance to anyone who sends feedback! You're like bright rays of sunshine on an otherwise cloudy day.

"Walk the walk, and talk the talk." mumbled a confused Ron Weasley to his best and very gay friend Harry Potter. When Ron had told Harry and all of his other friends two weeks ago that he was straight, Harry hadn't taken it as well as Ron had hoped. But with the help of Ron's ex-boyfriend Neville (who was now going out with Justin Finch-Fletchly from Hufflepuff, and was currently Ron's biggest supporter) they had gotten their friendship back on track (much to the chagrin of Draco, Harry's boyfriend). This was Harry's first big effort at make things The Way They Used To Be. He was attempting to teach Ron how to seduce the girl of his fancy, one Pansy Parkinson. Unfortunately, Ron didn't really seem to get anything he was saying.

"Now you've got it, Ron!" exclaimed Harry in a falsely cheerful voice, with a wide and fake grin decorating his face. "Walk the Walk," he demonstrated as he instructed, "and talk the Talk," he whispered in what he thought was a seductive voice. It wasn't really, but Harry had no way of knowing that because the only person he'd tried it on was Draco, and as far as Draco was concerned, everything Harry did, no matter how stupid, was really sexy.

Ron just shook his head, baffled. "No, I don't 'got it,'" he wined to his friend. "I can say it, but I have no idea what you mean. What's with all the out of place articles, anyway? Why can't I just walk and talk? Like I always do?"

Harry shook his head at Ron's complete naiveté. He really hoped being straight wasn't contagious, because it seemed really boring to him. He decided he needed to elaborate a bit, for the sake of his mentally deficient friend. Or maybe it was emotionally deficient? Harry remembered reading somewhere that if a father wasn't sensitive enough with a young son, the son might grow to emulate the mother, especially in matters concerning his choice in partner. He'd ask Draco to look it up later. For now, he needed to instruct Ron if his best friend was to have any hope of snagging the girl of his dreams. He wondered what the big deal was, though - weren't straight men supposed to be after everything in a skirt? Or at least, he amended, everything female and in a skirt.

"When you walk, Ron," he said in his most patronizing voice, "you just put one foot in front of the other. When you Walk, though," he grinned the frightening grin again, "you add a certain style to it. You wiggle your hips a bit, like this." he showed his friend, "and you sorta let your shoulders follow it, ya know," Ron didn't, "and you walk on the balls of your feet, so you look lighter." Harry pranced across the Common room and back in a way that emphasized his chest and rear end. Privately, Ron thought he looked very silly, but he decided to go along with it for the sake of friendship. He pranced across the room as much like Harry as he could.

Unbelievably, Ron looked even worse than Harry had. He fell in the middle of the return. After half-limping back to his friend, Ron announced that he thought he'd sprained his ankle. Harry mentally shook his head in disgust, and decided that he'd have to really apply himself to teaching Ron the Talk, because his Walk was way below standard, and if they tried it again, Ron might be seriously injured. Or maybe Harry would - a person could only take so much damage to the eyes before they gave out.

"Good job," he congratulated his friend in a strained voice. "That'll do for now," he announced to keep Ron from getting his hopes up for another performance. Although he didn't show it, Ron was secretly quite relieved, and hoped that whatever Harry had in mind next was a little. tougher. Brawnier. More chauvinistic. More feminine. His hopes, he soon realized, were in vain.

"First," Harry told Ron, "we'll work on your Voice."

"What's wrong with my voice?" Ron was very surprised - he'd always been told he had a very nice voice; musical and mellow, they'd told him. Of course, no one had said that since he had come out. He wondered if announcing his sexuality had changed him physically, too.

"Nothing's wrong with it," Harry was quick to confirm Ron's suspicion that his voice really wasn't suitable for seduction (in Harry's terms, at least) "but we can add just a little pizzazz."

Ron really didn't like the sound of 'pizzazz.' Nevertheless, he heard Harry out, and attempted to add the proper amounts of lust, breathlessness, innocence, awe, and adoration to his Voice. Eventually, Harry gave up on that one too, pronounced himself satisfied, and told Ron, "All that's left is something to say!" This was something Ron couldn't mess up, Harry knew, because ultimately he himself was in control.

Ron listened carefully to Harry's instruction. "What you need," Harry told him authoritatively, "is a pick up line. Try this one: 'Is that something in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?'"

Ron repeated it to himself, a little unsure. With Harry's repeated assurances of his own success with the line (assurances that, knowing Draco, Ron was forced to believe) Ron practiced it. Harry told him to use the Voice. Ron practiced again, this time with the Voice. Ron told him to try it once more for good measure, and as Ron once again trotted out the line, Dean and Seamus walked into the common room looking rumpled, satisfied, and plenty the worse for wear. They didn't seem to find it the least bit strange that their friend was practicing pick up lines.

But Seamus did object to Harry's choice. "Harry!" he wined. "Ron is trying to get a date, not seduce the girl. Here, Harry try something a little more innocent. Try 'I bet you'd like to fly. Wanna let me ride your broomstick?'"

Ron said nothing. "Go on!" urged Seamus. "It might be the perfect line."

Guessing that Seamus knew more about these affairs than he did, Ron did as he was told, and mumbled the line. "Louder," Seamus commanded. Ron complied. After the second run through, Seamus decided Ron needed to see the line in action to get a better feel for it. "Like this," he told the boy, and he turned to Dean and repeated what he'd told Ron to say in the same sexy Irish brogue that the entire sixth year had been trying to copy since as long as they could remember. It had the desired effect, and Dean whisked Ron's instructor away so quickly they left skid marks.

"Like that," Ron said.

"Like that," Harry repeated, quickly committing the line to memory for further trial later that night in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

"I bet you like to fly," Ron told the air on his left and opposite Harry. "Wanna let me ride your broomstick?" Just as he finished the line, Justin and Neville walked into the common room, and they too seemed to have the sixth sense that allowed them to soak up the situation quicker than a sponge soaks up water.

"Bad, Ron," Neville told him confidently. "You need something more original. No one can resist original wit. Try 'I can tell you like to play drums by that nice drumstick in you pocket.'"

Wondering what chicken had to do with pick-up lines, Ron practiced the line once. Neville decided that Ron was probably not the sort to improve with practice, and suggested that he go and find Pansy. Looking hopeful for the first time since his training session had begun, he left the Common room. Had he turned around, he would have seen that Justin and Harry were looking at Neville as if he'd lost his mind. "What?" he asked them. They looked some more. Neville calmed their fears. "I figure he might be better when faced with an actual gu-irl."

The other two boys nodded sagely.

Meanwhile, Ron was making his way down the corridor, hoping beyond hope that Pansy would be in the next one. Luck or some deity was obviously with him, because as soon as he turned the corner, he was confronted with a vision of the rear end that had haunted his dreams since as long as he could remember - which was all of about two months. "Pansy!" he called after her. She turned, and to Ron's inexperienced but hopeful eye she looked quite interested.

Ron almost chickened out, but one look at the lovely face of Pansy Parkinson, complete with round cheeks and that adorably puggy nose, convinced him that it was now or never, and he just had to know. He cleared his throat, and with the Voice that Harry had taught him in mind, he asked, "Is that something in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

Pansy looked adorably confused and more than a little angry.

Ron thought that Seamus must have been right after all, and so he tried again with, "I bet you like to fly. Wanna let me on your broomstick?"

Pansy rolled her eyes in a completely sang-froid gesture. Ron desperately gave it one more shot. "I can tell you like to play drums by that nice drumstick in you pocket."

Apparently, Pansy could no more see the relationship between chicken and pick-up lines than Ron could because at that point she rolled her eyes, turned her back, and began to walk away. Something, however, made her turn back, and upon so doing, she was confronted with a very dejected (not to mention sexy, she thought) Ron Weasley. She smiled a cruel little smile, and decided to see what happened if she told him, "Better not lean too far forward, or they might fall out."

If nothing else, Ron had the presence of mind to see that he was being made fun of, and so he blushed.

Pansy tried another one. "They look like quite a handful, doll, you want some help with those?"

This time, Ron blushed redder than a newly painted fire truck racing down the road with sirens blaring, glinting in the bright sunlight.

Pansy thought of one more and couldn't resist. "I bet you can carry a lot of water with jugs like those, baby."

Much as Pansy had done earlier, Ron turned around and began to walk away, but before he got very far, Pansy called, "Ron!"

Ron pirouetted back around, almost tripping over his own feet, and began to clear his throat to respond with the right inflection, when Pansy interrupted him to say, "With a normal voice this time, please."

If nothing else, Ron could follow instructions. "Yes?" he asked her.

Pansy smiled a secret smile and asked politely, "Let's start over. Are you trying to ask me out, Ron Weasley?"

Ron turned whiter than a drained lily baptized in bleach on Easter Sunday, and meekly responded, "Yes."

"Did your friends try to help you?" she asked hopefully. She knew most of them, because Draco often brought them to the Slytherin common room. That was where she'd met Ron, come to think of it, but hadn't he been all over Longbottom? She supposed it didn't matter now.

"Y-Yes," Ron told her. Pansy smiled. Ron decided that quiet affirmative would be his tone for the rest of the interview.

"I know a good straight bar in Hogsmead," Pansy informed the stunned boy succinctly. "You can pick me up next Friday at eight."

"Okay." Ron sure knew how to stick to a plan.

"I'll see you in the common room - Draco will tell you the password."

"Okay." Ron wondered if he ought to share this method of getting a date with his friends. It seemed to work much better than any of theirs.

"Bring flowers. I like roses," she told him.

"Okay."

"And Ron?" she asked just as he was turning away. "No more advice, okay? No more pick-up lines, either."

Ron just nodded and walked back to Gryffindor to inform his friends of his success.

Pansy Parkinson smiled her devious smile. She knew how she liked her men.

Three days later, Ron returned to the Gryffindor common room at eleven o'clock with a grin on his face that convinced even the most skeptical of his friends that the date had gone well. The careful and complete interrogation that followed his entry revealed that those convinced had not been misled. They satisfactorily concluded that, minor differences like sexual preference and social circles aside, Ron and Pansy were fated to live happily ever after in much the same manner as each of them was doing. "Or at least," Draco told his lover later that night as they were curled up on the transfigured bathroom stall-now-bed, alone and wrapped in each others arms, "as happy as any straight couple will ever be. And, given their personalities and tendencies, that's the best they can ever hope to get."

Final Author's Notes: Thank you for reading, anyone who got to the end. This has been a pleasure to right, and I hope a pleasure to read as well. Please, if you believe in human compassion, review. I crave feedback. I live on feedback. I adore reviews. Finally, thanks again. And please, please review!