Disclaimer: Bah.

A/N: Me again. WOW, I am getting this out fast. Maybe the whole story will be done in one week:O That would be awesome and LOVELY. :) As always, love you guys and enjoy!

PS – Serindipity, love, if your situation is just like Ron/Hermione/Harry's, then pretend you're Harry, okay? I think you know why. ;)

SNAPSHOTS – SIXTH YEAR

"...And then he flushed the toilet and it all came up in his face!"

The room roared with laughter. It was late evening on Saturday, Valentine's Day. About twenty teenage boys from Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor had gathered in the Room of Requirement to talk about how horrible the concept of Valentine's Day was. Everyone was either holding a Butterbeer or a Firewhisky, or a mix of the two, and they were taking turns telling stories of pranks, girls, and the other various things that teenage wizards talk about.

As Terry Boot told them all about his experience with a date gone horribly wrong, Harry and Ron laughed and sympathized with him with the rest of the group. Ron looked into his drink and swirled it around, then took a long swig. It felt refreshingly cool going down his throat, and it diminished his headache. Already he was thinking less about the events of earlier that day. Harry noticed his friend's now empty bottle, and glanced sideways at him.

"You alright?"

"I'm fine! Never been better," Ron scoffed, his words slightly slurred together. "Oi, Dean! Get me another one!" he called across the room. Dean complied cheerfully, tossing a new bottle of Butterbeer at Ron. The redhead looked at it, pushed himself up off the couch and walked over to the case of drinks, puling out a Firewhisky instead. He collapsed back down beside Harry with it in his hand, popped off the cap, and drank some. The wisps of smoke that trickled out his ears went almost unnoticed; just about everyone else in the room had them too.

"Look, it's not your fault about Hermione, mate."

"I know!" Ron said loudly. Some of the boys nearby looked around in their direction. "'S not my fault at all, is it? The hell she bloody go and do that for, eh?" Inbetween every couple of words, Ron drank. "Stupid b–"

"Ron! You don't mean that," Harry exclaimed. "That's the Firewhisky talking, you've got no tolerance for it."

"I've got no bloody what? Tollance? I think it's you who don't know what he's talkin' about! 'Ave one on the house, mate, go on," Ron slurred, frowning. Harry took his friend by the shoulders and made Ron look at him while the redhead finished off the bottle. "All in one go, 'd you see that? Haha! I'll show you who c'n forget about it, Hermione!"

"Ron, I'm Harry, not Hermione."

"He's damn trashed, he is," said Seamus over the back of the couch. "How many's he had?"

"Two Butterbeers and two whiskies already," Harry answered, concerned. "He's got almost no tolerance for the stuff. I'll probably end up dragging him back up to Gryffindor Tower later, over my shoulder."

Seamus laughed. "Don't let him have any more, or – oops, too late. Dean, why'd you let him have one?"

Ron had already opened the second bottle of Firewhisky and was gulping it quickly. Harry grabbed it away from him and held it out of his friend's reach. "Oi! Give us back the drink, mate, what's the big idea?" Ron yelled drunkenly, some of his words indecipherable. "I need it so I can show that horrible girl I don't care either!"

"Ron, of course she cares, she just doesn't –"

"BAH! Lousy devil-spawn, I'll teach her to make a fool outta me –!"

"She didn't make a fool out of you, Ron, she just said she didn't like you that wa–"

"SCREW 'ER! That's what I say, screw 'em all! Who needs girls anyway! Good-for-nothing –" Ron broke off, tears forming in his unfocused eyes. He poked feebly at Harry's hand, which was holding onto the front of Ron's shirt. "Why'd she go and do that, eh? I didn't do nothing to her, all I wanted was she said no all out in public an' it was horrible, I felt like I was gonna freaking die of shame, mate, bloody BUGGER OF A GIRL!"

With that, Ron slumped down on the couch, weeping miserably. Harry, unsure of what to do, tentatively patted his friend on the arm. Ron tipped his head back and closed his eyes, and within a minute he was completely passed out and drooling slightly. Harry shook his head and got to his feet, Ron's half-finished Firewhisky still in his hand. He looked at it for a moment or two, then shrugged and downed the rest of it in one long swig.

"Come on, up you get," he muttered to the unconscious Ron. When he didn't respond at all, Harry put the empty bottle on the floor and hoisted his friend's dead weight up over his own shoulder, as he'd predicted earlier. "Seamus, gimme a hand here, will you?"

The other boy nodded and complied, and the two of them made their way out of the bright and noisy room and out into the considerably quieter corridor. Working slowly, they dragged Ron all the way through the castle to the Fat Lady's portrait, spoke the password, and laid him out on a couch before the fire. "There's no way I'm going up six flights of stairs with him," was the way Harry put it, Seamus laughing and agreeing.

At that point, Lavender and Parvati emerged from the girls' dormitories, each dressed in fluffy pink and purple bathrobes and matching slippers. They burst out into a fit of giggles when they saw Harry and Seamus. "Happy Valentine's Day!" they both laughed.

"You've told me that about twenty times today..." Seamus muttered, but grinned at the girls anyway. "Ron's completely wasted here, ladies, don't be too loud now."

"Ooh! Is it because of Hermione?" Lavender squealed, tiptoeing over and peering down at the unconscious teenager. "You know, she hasn't left the dormitory room since this morning, she's all bent out of shape about it as much as he is! Well, she didn't drink herself into oblivion, but she's upset!"

"Really?" Harry asked, running his fingers through his messy hair absently. "Hell, today's been one of those days where everybody's mad at everybody else and nothing goes right...damn, I hate it when that happens."

"I always thought Ron liked her, but Hermione I was never sure about," Parvati said in hushed tones. "Still, to turn him down like that, in front of everyone? Harsh!"

"Yeah," Seamus agreed. "Why's she upset, though?"

"Oh, I don't know," Lavender said frustratedly. "We tried asking her, but all she did was moan on and on about how it would never be the same and poor Ron and she looked really worried about something, but wouldn't say what." She sighed. "Oh well."

"Worried? Ah, I'll never understand girls...I think I'm going to turn in," Harry said.

"You sure, mate?" Seamus asked. "It's only eleven. The night's still young!"

"Too much on my mind to enjoy it," Harry grinned apologetically, and Seamus clapped him on the shoulder.

"Right. Goodnight then," he said, and swaggered back out the portrait hole, Lavender and Parvati giggling and following him, still dressed in nightclothes. Harry rolled his eyes and threw a blanket over Ron, then headed up to bed. Happy Valentine's Day, indeed.