AUTHOR'S NOTE: My writing tends to be a regretfully ongoing process, in
that I'll read an old piece of mine a year or so after the fact and
suddenly decide to reword the whole thing while keeping the plot and
characters intact. So this is the third version or so of this fic to
appear on Fanfiction.net and definitely the one I'm most satisfied with . .
. for now. Enjoy it while it lasts, heh.
Here's a disclaimer for your law-abiding pleasure: I don't own them. Be grateful, because if I did, even less would get done than already does (sorry, Ms. Rowling!).
This is R/Hr-a pairing I actually would rather do without, but what are you going to do when fic attacks?-and rated PG-13 for suggestion and perhaps language as well. I don't think there's really anything else to say about this fic. Oh, archiving, as if anyone would want to. Feel free, but do let me know so my head can swell with pride, kay?
Thanks to my wacky internal muse (catch her sitcom on Fox this fall) and to "snapesredhotluver2000346" . . . you know who you are. Insert Japanese non sequitur here to make me look culturally dissatisfied and snobbish. And we're off.
. . . . . . . .
When he really thought about it, he was amazed his two best friends had managed to hold out this long at all.
And Harry Potter, trapped within the confines of the absent Percy Weasley's cozy but apparently thin-walled bedroom, had been thinking about it. There was precious little else to do when the clock wandered past 3 AM, after all. Except sleep, but--
Thump, thump, thump, squeak!
He groaned and attempted to stuff the loose cloth of the pillowcase deep into his ears. After a minute's struggle, he paused briefly, removed the itchy material and rolled over with a sigh. Squinted desperately at the glowing face of the bedside clock; 3:22 AM now. Reminded himself for the sixth time that if he weren't here, he'd be on Privet Drive, repressed and hungry.
Thwack! Groan.
But ASLEEP, dammit, asleep.
The now 15 year old wizard had been absolutely thrilled at the invitation to spend a few weeks of his summer holiday with his best friend's family. And he'd had a pleasant surprise waiting at the Burrow to greet him with the rest of the Weasleys--his other best friend, Hermione, was also staying over for some time. Suddenly, this long-suffering nephew had a hell of a summer to look forward to, and he'd be sharing it with the people he cared for the most. The truth was, Harry felt more at home in this cramped, bustling little house with Ron and Hermione than he did anywhere else on Earth, even Hogwarts. In a group of people he'd met not quite 5 years ago, Harry was, in his way, among family.
THWAP.
Okay, family didn't make sounds like that against their bedroom walls. At least, not generally.
The suspicion about Ron and Hermione had been in Harry's mind for his entire fourth year at Hogwarts and possibly even a little before then. The students had other things on their minds: exams, Yule Ball, survival against the Dark Lord, that kind of silly teenage thing. Yet somewhere back in the ever-dwindling part of his mind that dealt with the mundane, boring bits of his wizardly life, Harry had been thinking that no two people can bicker that much during a life-or-death situation unless something was blossoming between them.
Smack! Sigh. Booooooooing!
Perhaps even blossoming very loudly, very late at night, in the bedroom adjacent to Harry's. In fact, all the beautiful, miraculous, enthusiastic and hopefully protected blossoming was going to leave Harry a zombie tomorrow for their planned Quidditch practice. But what exactly did one do in this sort of situation?
"You see, Ron, you've been cooped up for a week at the height of puberty with a girl you've been crushing on for over a year now, and this morning at 3:00 I woke up to hear . . . noises . . . coming from your room, like thuds and shrieks and things, so I decided to mosey on down the hallway and walk straight into your room to tell you to knock it off. No harm done there, buddy, right? Your shirt's over there, Hermione. No, no, just thought you would want it later."
Harry snorted a bit at himself. Not happening. Whatever was going on in Ron Weasley's bedroom at, at . . . 3:31 AM . . . was not something he wanted to risk seeing, or hearing any more of than he was now, or even thinking about. He flopped onto his back, crossed his arms, and settled down to wait it out.
His firm resolve lasted 7 whole minutes, which was really not bad at all for a sleep-deprived adolescent boy. The livid, groggy Harry finally threw the covers off his body, shoved on his glasses a little too hard, and stalked down the hallway.
Whap! Thunk! Sigh.
He paused with his hand raised in the air near Ron's door, wondering vaguely if there was some sort of universal adolescent password for this sort of thing. "Candygram!" Even if Hogwarts had offered a sexual education program, Harry was sure that kind of thing wasn't covered in any such class, anywhere. So he stood there, lost in thought and helpless anxiety, until he was startled out of his reverie by a THUD very near the wall he was leaning against. Ron's bed was on the other side of the room; there was only one explanation.
Sexual relay race.
Harry brought his hand to the door and rapped loudly, expecting to hear two startled sets of footsteps making a mad dash for the safety of the bedclothes. To his shock, the door wasn't fully closed, and slammed open under his blows. Horrified at himself, Harry scrunched his eyes shut as tightly as he could and stuttered out the beginnings of an apology, but suddenly something flimsy but painful struck him across the forehead.
"Owwwwww!" Harry opened his eyes automatically, forgetting for the moment why he'd so carefully closed them, and rubbed the back of his hand across his stinging brow. "Look, just because I walked in on the two of-no reason to--"
A very alone Ron cut him off by grabbing his shoulders roughly, accidentally grazing Harry's cheek with the rolled-up newspaper he still wielded. "You . . . you let it out! It went out into the hallway!"
Harry watched in astonishment as his seemingly insane best friend dashed into the hall, whipping his head around violently in search of something. Finally, Ron's body tensed, and he began to slowly creep toward the kitchen. "I see it. It must be stopped. I must take my revenge before it can cause more suffering!"
Not knowing what else to do, Harry followed Ron, unsure of whether he should play along or make a mad dash for professional help. Finally, after being led into the kitchen to watch the other wizard continue his mysterious search, Harry decided to say something. "Ummm, Ron. What the hell are we doing?"
"What do you mean?" The voice was tight, hushed, and obviously under incredible strain.
"I mean to say, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE WE DOING? Why are we standing in your kitchen near 4 AM with a rolled-up newspaper?"
Ron turned quickly around and clapped a hand over Harry's mouth, catching him off-guard and causing him to stumble backwards loudly into the kitchen table. He leaned in close to whisper. "What are we doing? We're after THE FLY, that's what we're doing!" He paused, then continued when he saw Harry's look. "That little pest's been buzzing my ear all night. Here I am, in my room, trying to get my beauty sleep--"
"So was I! You were making so much noise in there that you woke me up, and I--"
"--when this horrible noise startles me awake! I thought I could ignore it, but every time I started to drift off, it was bzzzzz! Bzzzzz! BZZZZZ! Right 'round my HEAD, Harry! I've been chasing after it, trying to swat it, for nearly an hour now!" Ron paused for breath, then went on a shade dramatically. "It needs to DIE."
"Ron. Honestly. If I let it out of your room, then you're bug-free and you can go back to bed now. And maybe you wouldn't get flies in there if you didn't take chocolate with you to sleep!"
"How did you know I'd been eating chocolate?"
"You're breathing on me, Weasley."
Ron turned pink and sat back in a chair. "Ummmm, sorry." He cleared his throat, nervously. "And sorry for waking you up, Harry. I wasn't trying to be loud about it; I just wanted a little peace for a few hours. Were you coming to tell me to shut my hole?"
Harry chuckled. "Kind of."
There was a slight pause. "When you came in, you said something about 'walking in on the two of us.'"
"We-ell . . . that was just . . . I mean, I had no idea what those noises were. You sounded like you were moving furniture in there!"
"But what did you THINK I was doing in there?"
Harry grinned sheepishly and lowered his eyes. "I sort of thought you were, well, you know, I thought you had Hermione in there with you." Ron's gaze remained blank. "YOU know. I thought maybe you . . . geez, for someone whose parents have 7 kids, you're a little slow on the uptake."
"Oh." Ron blinked and began to redden further. "Ohhhhhh! Are you insane? Hermione and I, in my bedroom, with my parents and little sister home?"
"I was amazed you'd held out this long, actually. And anyway, what about Fred and George? They're home too."
"You kidding? They'd be the ones outside my bedroom with the pom-poms. Wait, just what do you mean, 'held out this long?' Harry, what are you insinuating here?" Ron attempted a defensive stance without bothering to stand up first.
"Come off it, Ron. You know there's a spark there."
Ron's jaw dropped, and he colored even further, but Harry continued. "Don't even start to deny it. You have a thing for her, and she has a thing for you, and I was sure you guys were keeping me awake by having a thing together."
There was a long, tense silence. The shocked Ron seemed to be on the verge of speaking, but unable to make any sound. Finally, after a period of flapping his mouth open and shut like a baby bird, he managed to timidly eek out his thoughts, an octave or two higher than usual.
"You think she has a thing for me? Really? You think she'd have a thing WITH me?"
Harry smiled knowingly. "Hey, I've been watching you guys from the outside for almost 5 years now. I think I know you both pretty well. And she's not as obvious about it as you are, but I can safely say that she'd definitely 'have a thing with you.'"
A rapid succession of conflicting emotions flickered across Ron's face, and Harry wasn't sure what to think; he was relieved when his friend eventually brightened up and beamed at him.
"Wow. Well, wow. Thanks, Harry. How should I, I mean to say, how do I . . . do you think she'd want me to . . . or would she rather . . .?"
A door opened and closed somewhere in the house, and soon an angry witch with the world's worst bed hair stormed into the kitchen and glared at them. "What on earth are you two doing out in the kitchen at a quarter after 4 in the morning?" Hermione ranted as loudly as she dared. "You could at least turn off the overhead light and keep your voices down! The civilized beings under this roof need their rest!
Harry glanced back and forth between the fuming Hermione and the furiously blushing Ron. Finally, he patted Ron soundly on the back and gave a huge, fake yawn.
"Good luck, Weasley."
Harry Potter headed back to the guest room, sneaking a quick peek behind him at Ron's face. It was an expression worth remembering for a good long time.
Now for some peace and quiet. He fell into bed, exhausted, and had barely touched the sheets when he felt himself drifting away in the blissfully silent dark. Tomorrow, breakfast would be very interesting. But before that, he had sleep to catch up on. Glorious, marvelous, well-earned sleep.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
"Oh, bugger THAT!"
Here's a disclaimer for your law-abiding pleasure: I don't own them. Be grateful, because if I did, even less would get done than already does (sorry, Ms. Rowling!).
This is R/Hr-a pairing I actually would rather do without, but what are you going to do when fic attacks?-and rated PG-13 for suggestion and perhaps language as well. I don't think there's really anything else to say about this fic. Oh, archiving, as if anyone would want to. Feel free, but do let me know so my head can swell with pride, kay?
Thanks to my wacky internal muse (catch her sitcom on Fox this fall) and to "snapesredhotluver2000346" . . . you know who you are. Insert Japanese non sequitur here to make me look culturally dissatisfied and snobbish. And we're off.
. . . . . . . .
When he really thought about it, he was amazed his two best friends had managed to hold out this long at all.
And Harry Potter, trapped within the confines of the absent Percy Weasley's cozy but apparently thin-walled bedroom, had been thinking about it. There was precious little else to do when the clock wandered past 3 AM, after all. Except sleep, but--
Thump, thump, thump, squeak!
He groaned and attempted to stuff the loose cloth of the pillowcase deep into his ears. After a minute's struggle, he paused briefly, removed the itchy material and rolled over with a sigh. Squinted desperately at the glowing face of the bedside clock; 3:22 AM now. Reminded himself for the sixth time that if he weren't here, he'd be on Privet Drive, repressed and hungry.
Thwack! Groan.
But ASLEEP, dammit, asleep.
The now 15 year old wizard had been absolutely thrilled at the invitation to spend a few weeks of his summer holiday with his best friend's family. And he'd had a pleasant surprise waiting at the Burrow to greet him with the rest of the Weasleys--his other best friend, Hermione, was also staying over for some time. Suddenly, this long-suffering nephew had a hell of a summer to look forward to, and he'd be sharing it with the people he cared for the most. The truth was, Harry felt more at home in this cramped, bustling little house with Ron and Hermione than he did anywhere else on Earth, even Hogwarts. In a group of people he'd met not quite 5 years ago, Harry was, in his way, among family.
THWAP.
Okay, family didn't make sounds like that against their bedroom walls. At least, not generally.
The suspicion about Ron and Hermione had been in Harry's mind for his entire fourth year at Hogwarts and possibly even a little before then. The students had other things on their minds: exams, Yule Ball, survival against the Dark Lord, that kind of silly teenage thing. Yet somewhere back in the ever-dwindling part of his mind that dealt with the mundane, boring bits of his wizardly life, Harry had been thinking that no two people can bicker that much during a life-or-death situation unless something was blossoming between them.
Smack! Sigh. Booooooooing!
Perhaps even blossoming very loudly, very late at night, in the bedroom adjacent to Harry's. In fact, all the beautiful, miraculous, enthusiastic and hopefully protected blossoming was going to leave Harry a zombie tomorrow for their planned Quidditch practice. But what exactly did one do in this sort of situation?
"You see, Ron, you've been cooped up for a week at the height of puberty with a girl you've been crushing on for over a year now, and this morning at 3:00 I woke up to hear . . . noises . . . coming from your room, like thuds and shrieks and things, so I decided to mosey on down the hallway and walk straight into your room to tell you to knock it off. No harm done there, buddy, right? Your shirt's over there, Hermione. No, no, just thought you would want it later."
Harry snorted a bit at himself. Not happening. Whatever was going on in Ron Weasley's bedroom at, at . . . 3:31 AM . . . was not something he wanted to risk seeing, or hearing any more of than he was now, or even thinking about. He flopped onto his back, crossed his arms, and settled down to wait it out.
His firm resolve lasted 7 whole minutes, which was really not bad at all for a sleep-deprived adolescent boy. The livid, groggy Harry finally threw the covers off his body, shoved on his glasses a little too hard, and stalked down the hallway.
Whap! Thunk! Sigh.
He paused with his hand raised in the air near Ron's door, wondering vaguely if there was some sort of universal adolescent password for this sort of thing. "Candygram!" Even if Hogwarts had offered a sexual education program, Harry was sure that kind of thing wasn't covered in any such class, anywhere. So he stood there, lost in thought and helpless anxiety, until he was startled out of his reverie by a THUD very near the wall he was leaning against. Ron's bed was on the other side of the room; there was only one explanation.
Sexual relay race.
Harry brought his hand to the door and rapped loudly, expecting to hear two startled sets of footsteps making a mad dash for the safety of the bedclothes. To his shock, the door wasn't fully closed, and slammed open under his blows. Horrified at himself, Harry scrunched his eyes shut as tightly as he could and stuttered out the beginnings of an apology, but suddenly something flimsy but painful struck him across the forehead.
"Owwwwww!" Harry opened his eyes automatically, forgetting for the moment why he'd so carefully closed them, and rubbed the back of his hand across his stinging brow. "Look, just because I walked in on the two of-no reason to--"
A very alone Ron cut him off by grabbing his shoulders roughly, accidentally grazing Harry's cheek with the rolled-up newspaper he still wielded. "You . . . you let it out! It went out into the hallway!"
Harry watched in astonishment as his seemingly insane best friend dashed into the hall, whipping his head around violently in search of something. Finally, Ron's body tensed, and he began to slowly creep toward the kitchen. "I see it. It must be stopped. I must take my revenge before it can cause more suffering!"
Not knowing what else to do, Harry followed Ron, unsure of whether he should play along or make a mad dash for professional help. Finally, after being led into the kitchen to watch the other wizard continue his mysterious search, Harry decided to say something. "Ummm, Ron. What the hell are we doing?"
"What do you mean?" The voice was tight, hushed, and obviously under incredible strain.
"I mean to say, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE WE DOING? Why are we standing in your kitchen near 4 AM with a rolled-up newspaper?"
Ron turned quickly around and clapped a hand over Harry's mouth, catching him off-guard and causing him to stumble backwards loudly into the kitchen table. He leaned in close to whisper. "What are we doing? We're after THE FLY, that's what we're doing!" He paused, then continued when he saw Harry's look. "That little pest's been buzzing my ear all night. Here I am, in my room, trying to get my beauty sleep--"
"So was I! You were making so much noise in there that you woke me up, and I--"
"--when this horrible noise startles me awake! I thought I could ignore it, but every time I started to drift off, it was bzzzzz! Bzzzzz! BZZZZZ! Right 'round my HEAD, Harry! I've been chasing after it, trying to swat it, for nearly an hour now!" Ron paused for breath, then went on a shade dramatically. "It needs to DIE."
"Ron. Honestly. If I let it out of your room, then you're bug-free and you can go back to bed now. And maybe you wouldn't get flies in there if you didn't take chocolate with you to sleep!"
"How did you know I'd been eating chocolate?"
"You're breathing on me, Weasley."
Ron turned pink and sat back in a chair. "Ummmm, sorry." He cleared his throat, nervously. "And sorry for waking you up, Harry. I wasn't trying to be loud about it; I just wanted a little peace for a few hours. Were you coming to tell me to shut my hole?"
Harry chuckled. "Kind of."
There was a slight pause. "When you came in, you said something about 'walking in on the two of us.'"
"We-ell . . . that was just . . . I mean, I had no idea what those noises were. You sounded like you were moving furniture in there!"
"But what did you THINK I was doing in there?"
Harry grinned sheepishly and lowered his eyes. "I sort of thought you were, well, you know, I thought you had Hermione in there with you." Ron's gaze remained blank. "YOU know. I thought maybe you . . . geez, for someone whose parents have 7 kids, you're a little slow on the uptake."
"Oh." Ron blinked and began to redden further. "Ohhhhhh! Are you insane? Hermione and I, in my bedroom, with my parents and little sister home?"
"I was amazed you'd held out this long, actually. And anyway, what about Fred and George? They're home too."
"You kidding? They'd be the ones outside my bedroom with the pom-poms. Wait, just what do you mean, 'held out this long?' Harry, what are you insinuating here?" Ron attempted a defensive stance without bothering to stand up first.
"Come off it, Ron. You know there's a spark there."
Ron's jaw dropped, and he colored even further, but Harry continued. "Don't even start to deny it. You have a thing for her, and she has a thing for you, and I was sure you guys were keeping me awake by having a thing together."
There was a long, tense silence. The shocked Ron seemed to be on the verge of speaking, but unable to make any sound. Finally, after a period of flapping his mouth open and shut like a baby bird, he managed to timidly eek out his thoughts, an octave or two higher than usual.
"You think she has a thing for me? Really? You think she'd have a thing WITH me?"
Harry smiled knowingly. "Hey, I've been watching you guys from the outside for almost 5 years now. I think I know you both pretty well. And she's not as obvious about it as you are, but I can safely say that she'd definitely 'have a thing with you.'"
A rapid succession of conflicting emotions flickered across Ron's face, and Harry wasn't sure what to think; he was relieved when his friend eventually brightened up and beamed at him.
"Wow. Well, wow. Thanks, Harry. How should I, I mean to say, how do I . . . do you think she'd want me to . . . or would she rather . . .?"
A door opened and closed somewhere in the house, and soon an angry witch with the world's worst bed hair stormed into the kitchen and glared at them. "What on earth are you two doing out in the kitchen at a quarter after 4 in the morning?" Hermione ranted as loudly as she dared. "You could at least turn off the overhead light and keep your voices down! The civilized beings under this roof need their rest!
Harry glanced back and forth between the fuming Hermione and the furiously blushing Ron. Finally, he patted Ron soundly on the back and gave a huge, fake yawn.
"Good luck, Weasley."
Harry Potter headed back to the guest room, sneaking a quick peek behind him at Ron's face. It was an expression worth remembering for a good long time.
Now for some peace and quiet. He fell into bed, exhausted, and had barely touched the sheets when he felt himself drifting away in the blissfully silent dark. Tomorrow, breakfast would be very interesting. But before that, he had sleep to catch up on. Glorious, marvelous, well-earned sleep.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
"Oh, bugger THAT!"