Disclaimer: I don't own any Harry Potter characters. I asked JKR how much she wanted for Ron and Draco, and she gave me a reeeeally large number. Therefore, don't sue me, because I'm broke from trying to save up.
Summary: The chapter in which nothing happens…
Pairing: Ron/Draco
Rating: R
Author's Note/Warning: This lil story of mine is slash, or at least will be if I ever get past plot and to the good stuff. Boys and…boys. If you don't like it... then why the hell are you on chapter five?!? Thanks in advance to Jaime, who made sure I knew that I use "nutters" incorrectly. See? That's why I have to have you around, Jaime!
THE DAILY PROPHET
Chapter 5: Up and Coming
"Stroke it!"
"No way, Weasley, I'm not going to put my hands near it."
Ron pushed sweat soaked red hair out of his eyes and groaned. "Malfoy, would you just touch it?"
Draco licked his lips lazily. "You can't make me."
"Oh, for the love of—" Ron flopped onto the soft floor of the greenhouse and gathered the Flouzle in his hands. "You're bloody impossible to work with, Malfoy. How are we supposed to work together for three weeks?!"
Draco studied the redhead for a few moments before chuckling mirthlessly. "If you're not satisfied with me or my work, you shouldn't have volunteered yourself to be my partner."
"I hope you don't think I did that for any reason other than to help out the poor Flouzle. I can't imagine what it'd be like to have to be stuck with you all alone for three weeks," he said coldly. "I know your track history with animals, I'd hate for the poor creature to have to depend on YOU for survival."
"Careful, Weasel," Draco said with a smirk. "You're almost hurting my feelings."
"Oh, that's rich," Ron snapped, watching Draco remove a bit of dirt from under his fingernails. "Malfoys don't HAVE feelings."
Draco snapped his head down in Ron's direction and looked thoughtful. "Well, maybe Weasleys feel too much," he countered as the Flouzle jumped from Ron's hands. It scampered over to Draco and pounced up on his knee, sinking its claws into his trouser leg. "Ouch," he said lazily, grabbing the animal by the scruff of the neck and bringing it to eye level. "So. We're to name this pitiful thing?"
Ron stood and brushed the dirt off of his clothing, casting an annoyed look at the Slytherin. "Yes. Everyone else has named theirs already, we're behind. We haven't—"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, get the bee out of your bonnet, Weasley," Draco said with a sigh. "We only got the grimy thing yesterday, we don't even have Hagrid's class again until Thursday." He stared at the creature disdainfully, still holding him out at arm's length. "So, it's a male."
"All Flouzles are males, Malfoy," Ron said, looking in his Care of Magical Creatures text. "It says so right here."
"That's impossible." Draco leaned forward and read silently. "Well, if they're all males, how do they…" his voice trailed as he thought. "Asexual?"
"Of course not. They…they mate." Ron's face went crimson, and he stared at his book, unseeing.
"Indeed?" An eyebrow raised in mild curiousity. "Interesting." He turned his attention back to the furball squeaking unhappily in his clutches. "So, what shall we name him? I have some ideas."
"So do I," Ron said defiantly. "I think he should be called Chudley."
Draco could absolutely not resist the urge to snort, as unbecoming as it was. "Chudley? Have you gone mad? He's not orange. And…he isn't a loser."
"Well, what do you suggest, then?" Ron questioned angrily.
"I was thinking…he looks like an Adonis."
"WHAT?" Ron splurted, laughing hysterically. "He most certainly does NOT look like an Adonis!"
"Fine." Draco pushed Ron's book behind him with his foot and had a seat on it, ignoring Ron's look of indignance. Ron followed suit, sitting on his own bag. They both stared at the creature in silence for a few moments. It began nibbling on Draco's fingers, and Ron was surprised to notice that the blonde boy didn't seem to mind. In fact, he was smiling. Not sneering, not smirking, not laughing coldly, the mean-spirited Slytherin prat was smiling a genuine smile.
"He's hungry," Draco said suddenly, looking around and losing his smile. "Wasn't the whole purpose of this late night trip to the greenhouse to pick up some Flatterhorn leaves for him to eat?"
"Yes." The Gryffindor stared suspiciously at his partner, then stood to grab some big orange leaves from the nearest Flatterhorn plant. He handed them to Draco, who proceeded to hold them up to the Flouzle's mouth. They were rewarded with several high squeaks and some purring.
"Why don't we just name him something simple, like Fuzzy?" Draco murmured, petting the contented creature softly.
Ron's mouth fell open. He was quite sure that Malfoy had gone as mad as Harry now. "S-sure…er…all right. Fuzzy." He chuckled a bit, an uncomfortable tittering that nonetheless seemed fitting. "Fuzzy the Flouzle. Has a nice ring."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"You're trying to tell me that Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, stroked the Flouzle, smiled at it, and named it Fuzzy?" Hermione shook her head while spreading marmalade on her toast. "Impossible."
"It happened, I tell you!" Ron said, exasperated.
"You shouldn't eat so many eclairs before bed," Hermione insisted, pouring herself some pumpkin juice before reaching across the table to pour some for Ron and Harry.
"It makes you dream strange things, and then your imagination is overworked. Honestly, you should know that by now."
Ron began to argue, but Hermione had already begun to scold him for making the house elves whip eclairs up for him whenever he felt the desire for one, and he didn't feel like listening to her ranting. He stared down at his breakfast for a moment. "It was like he was almost human," Ron blurted, then groaned. Damn it. I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. It's like a sickness.
Hermione took her nose out of the book she was reading, Facts, Fiction, and Fluffiness: A Definitive Study of Flouzles, and stared at Ron. "You're serious."
"Of course I'm serious!" sputtered Ron. "D'you think I'd joke over something like that? Is there some kind of spore or something that Flouzles put out that makes the person holding them soften up?" He leaned across the table, craning his neck to look into Hermione's book.
"Honestly, Ron, all animals can soften up people." She grinned at Pig, who was now twittering around Ron's plate excitedly. He hooted happily, nipping at Ron's hand.
"Oi! Stop that!" Ron said, pushing the owl away with the back of his hand.
"Well, animals can soften people most of the time," she amended her statement, frowning at Ron and pulling Pig to her side of the table, offering up some of her corn flakes as two owls came flying over to Ron at once.
"What, more mail? Pig brought me a letter back from Mum already," He said, annoyed, as both owls landed next to his plate of sausages. Pig nearly went mad, hooting and bouncing around so much that Hermione had to gently turn a goblet over on him for a moment so as to be able to get him into her hand to prevent his movement.
"Popular this morning, aren't you?" Hermione grinned. She watched in amusement as one of the owls, a Eurasian Tawny, stared up at Ron curiously with its foot held out, almost as if he were standing at a bizarre form of military attention. It began to wobble a bit before Ron frowned and untied the thick envelope attached to its leg. It wasted no time in flying away, and Ron put the envelope to the side as he reached for the leg of the second owl. It was a Great Grey, and it looked at Ron with as much disdain as an owl could muster. Ron untied the small note attached, and the owl stayed in place. "I think he's waiting for a reply," Hermione said when Ron looked at the owl in confusion, rubbing her index finger over the top of Pigwidgeon's head, which appeared to be putting him to sleep.
Ron nodded and opened the note. The small, neat handwriting was unfamiliar, but the words were not. He started mumbling the note aloud.
"Muggle-lover,
I have Quidditch practise after lessons today, so you'll have to go to the greenhouses without me. In fact, I'm busy all week, so if it's all the same to you, I'd prefer if you'd just finish the project without me, as it's filthy work and you're used to that—"
"Yes, I can tell he's a changed man," Hermione chortled.
"That git," Ron said, crumpling the note, then promptly uncrumpling to write a response on the other side. He yanked one of Hermione's quills from beside her books and wrote sloppily:
Malfoy,
Get bent. You're doing the project. Meet me in the Entrance Hall at 8 to go get leaves to feed Fuzzy.
Weasley
"Maybe you can make some sort of contraption that makes it possible for Draco to always hold Fuzzy," said Harry brightly, speaking for the first time since they'd arrived at breakfast.
"I wouldn't dare do that to the poor creature," Ron said seriously to Harry. "Malfoy'd have it annoyed to death just from looking at his ferrety face." He shook his head and went back to the thick envelope, tearing it open and taking out a rather short piece of parchment.
"What is it?" Hermione asked, releasing Pig. He flew off to the Owlery much more subdued than usual.
"It's..a letter from the Daily Prophet. They want to do a profile on me." The redhead stared, amazed, at the letter in front of him. "A short profile..on me." A grin lit up his face. "Apparently I'm their choice for Up and Coming Wizard for November."
"Wow, that's great, Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, her eyes wide. "Are they coming here to get information or an interview, or—"
"Well, they have a questionnaire they want me to answer. I have to send that and a picture to them by the 15th. That is…if I choose to do this." He bit his lip. It would be really nice to be in the paper on his own merit. Then again, he thought bitterly, what have I done that merits me being in the paper? Harry's the hero, I'm just a Weasley. Just his sidekick…
"You can't mean you won't do it," Hermione gasped. "I think it's wonderful! You! In the paper! You have to do it so I can clip it and put it in my journal."
Ron looked at his friend in surprise. "You'd do that?" He was pleased to see her cheeks turn very pink.
"Of course I would," she said softly. "So start answering those questions. Are they really personal questions?"
Ron studied the questionnaire. "'Who are your heroes?' 'You play Beater for the Gryffindor Quidditch Team at Hogwarts, what led you to that position?' 'Any special witch or wizard in your life?' Well, what rubbish." His ears began to redden.
"Ah, so they're obviously going for the deep subject material," Hermione giggled.
"You can tell them about the time you rescued the Philosopher's Stone from Quirrell's evil clutches!" Harry suggested.
"That was you, Harry," Hermione and Ron said at the same time.
"Oh. Right. Well, you can tell them about the time you conjured that Patronus against those dementors—"
"Again. You. Harry." Hermione fought to keep the smile from her face.
"Right. Well, I'm fresh out of ideas then. I'm off to find my hair ribbons, I think Seamus had them last." With that, Harry left the Great Hall, tapping every single Slytherin on the head on his way out, making them sprout beans in their hair, but pointedly skipping over Pansy Parkinson.
"Between Harry, working with Malfoy and this newspaper thing, I'm going to go absolutely bananas," Ron muttered to himself.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I see you finally made it."
"You didn't give me a fucking choice, Weasel."
"Language, Malfoy." Ron smirked. "And you're right. You don't have a choice."
"Well, if we're going to do this, then let's do it. I have work to do in the dormitory." Draco's eyes narrowed as he noticed widening grin. "What the hell are you smiling at?"
"The mere idea of you ever doing work is amusing."
"Fuck you." Ron's smile faded. He knew Malfoy wasn't all warm and cuddly, but he didn't remember him being this angry at any time. And he didn't remember ever hearing Malfoy curse at all. He didn't bother wiping the shock off of his face.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Oh, what, being stuck in the greenhouses at night with you isn't enough to make me want to jump from the Astronomy Tower?" Draco's voice was steadily rising; he was now talking in a low shriek. Ron backed away from the blond quickly.
"Calm down, Malfoy—"
"Don't tell me to fucking calm down!!" Draco advanced on Ron, snaking an arm out and reaching up to grab a handful of the fiery hair. "You're nothing, Weasley, nothing. Lower than dirt, scum on the bottom of a shoe. You're worthless, you'll never be anything to anyone. In fact, if you were to end your sad, miserable, pathetic existance tonight, not a single person would miss you. Not one. Well, maybe your family, but they're nobodies too."
Ron, too shocked to react properly, reached up to remove Draco's hand from his head, where he was ruthlessly twisting and yanking the hair, and couldn't. "Let go of me! What the hell—what's wrong with you?" He tried twisting away, but the grip on his hair tightened, and Draco lifted his other hand to Ron's hair. This was no ordinary fight; Ron looked into Draco's face but the Slytherin's eyes held no emotion. In fact, they were vacant, as if Draco wasn't even there. Ron cried out in pain as he felt some of his hair being torn out.
"Ow! Damn it, Malfoy, what the hell are you doing?!" Ron brought his fist up, but couldn't get a clear swing at Draco, his arms were in the way, right in front of his face. He brought a knee up and was rewarded with Draco letting go and dropping to his knees. "What. The. Fuck. is going on with you?"
The pale boy groaned in pain and looked up. "Weasley?"
"Yes, Weasley, who did you expect?" Ron spat, rubbing his head and wincing. "You tore my hair out, you slimy—"
"How did I get in here?"
"What?" Taken aback, Ron folded his arms over his chest. "You walked here with me. We met in the Entrance Hall. You can't have forgotten that quickly. We were coming here to get some food for our Flouzle."
"Where's the Flouzle?" Draco stood feebly.
"Where's the—he's out in the paddock! Have you gone insane?!" Ron's face burned bright red. "You just attacked me, I should kick your sorry arse—"
"How did I get in here?" Draco repeated, looking around in confusion. "When did I come here?"
"I just told you. You honestly don't remember getting here?" Ron's anger started to fade, quickly replaced by bewilderment.
"I was just…," Draco said, more firmly this time, "I was just playing with Goyle..playing chess with Goyle…after potions class…that's the last thing I remember." He looked out the windows. "It's dark."
Ron's jaw dropped as he stared at Draco. "Potions? Blimey, Malfoy, that was over eight hours ago!"
I'd like to send thanks to Tas, Jaime, Maud, and all the girls/guy at the S.S. Prince and Pauper. Also a big happy thank you to my reviewers, I told you I'd continue! I just didn't realize how long it would take. Stay tuned.Spoilers: None
